The Dead Waltz
by YFWE
Summary: Sequel to "The Redemption of Gideon Grey." A murder shakes up Bunnyburrow days before a hotly contested mayoral election, and there's a chance they're related. An unlikely team - with help from afar thanks to a certain fox and rabbit duo - sets out to solve it.
1. Red Cold River

**I had absolutely zero intent to write a sequel to "The Redemption of Gideon Grey" until a few months ago, when I did a quick re-read of the original instead of, uh, doing something productive with my life.**

 **Here we are now? I dunno. Like three people asked for a sequel back when this thing first came out, and I'm certain they've since moved on from the Zootopia fandom, unlike me for whatever reason, but if ya haven't... hey, here's the follow-up to that story you totally forgot you read two years ago! How about that? Hollywood ain't got original ideas no more.**

 **Though this is up on a Wednesday (and on the two-year anniversary of the original's posting on , no less!), updates SHOULD be weekly each Friday. Should. Shooooould. How long will that last? HAHAHAHAHAwe'llsee.**

 **Yeah, so here's a prologue made up entirely of OCs! I'm sure y'all are positively thrilled. If you haven't read the original, some of these characters and references are probably gonna go over your head, so, uh...**

 **Yep, yeah, yep, mhm, that right there was the sound of everyone closing this window at once.**

 **Anyway, hi, if you're still here!**

 **The Dead Waltz**

 **YFWE**

 **Ch. 1: Prologue – Red Cold River**

They said the river could sing, which was not something rivers were supposed to do. That brought about the concept of sirens, water-dwelling mammals who lured young children or easily coerced adults with a sweet song before dragging them into the swift currents, never seen from again – alive, anyway.

And anyway, the expression was usually used to describe something positive about a generally inanimate land feature or body of matter, was it not? This was something entirely different, an admission of activity where there should not have been, noise where there should have been solitude and serenity. Maybe that had something to do with the way that its natural course had slowly eroded the soil over time as it bent near Main Street of downtown Bunnyburrow, creating a rocky bend beneath a bridge that led to the surrounding farmland. The way it hit that curve, water flowing on a slightly downhill trajectory before washing up against the steep riverbank and continuing onward in a 90-degree angle the other way, created a rippling sound, however faint, that often eluded usual passersby as the hustle and bustle of a new day drowned its protests.

But at nighttime, businesses closed and the twinkle of the downtown traffic lights the only movement around, one could hear the river faintly in the distance, smashing and flowing against rocks and rough clods of dirt and mud before its trip back into the leveled-out countryside, like a comet passing nearby in the night sky preceding its return journey to the stars.

The stream had once been the site of an engine-powered boat race in decades prior, but concerns about the depth of the river from its surface to the riverbed cut out most of the activity that might have graced its shores otherwise. Aside from the sound it emitted, it was a quiet place, uneventful, an integral part of postcards showing downtown Bunnyburrow – visit soon, y'hear? – but more of a background landmark than an area of bustling activity.

Tonight, however, was different.

Danny Brerington had parked his car on County Line Road not far from downtown. The cigarette smoke that usually accompanied him in town when he stood outside the town police department's main office (or lingered within it, tiny as it was), at The Icy Koala or even in thin wisps outside his car window as he drove by was present in even more copious amounts than usual. He had picked up the habit as a hobby in college; it turned into tradition into his early middle age, though the rabbit did not usually need it to calm his nerves.

He most certainly needed it for its medicinal purposes that night, however. Blame the lack of sleep the previous few nights or perhaps the impending general election for county clerk for which his brother was a candidate; one hour before, he might have chalked it up to nothing more than that.

Then came the phone call. Check out the river a little past town, his brother-in-law had said. You know, right after where it bends? Near the bridge, yeah, that's it. Something's there that isn't normally there. That's weird, right?

Any designs on an early bedtime were shattered when Brerington, still fairly new to his current role as Bunnyburrow's constable, laid eyes on his brother-in-law's late-night concern. And given the late hour, coupled with the Bunnyburrow police station's lack of a great deal of equipment necessary for a waterborne development, he knew he would need outside help.

He was relieved to see that assistance approaching, the county patrol car crossing the road's middle yellow line and pulling into the ditch where the rabbit cop stood. He offered a small wave, ditching his nearly finished cigarette by smashing its lit end against the door of his car.

Officer Perkins, a longtime presence of the county police department, had practically stepped out of the passenger side door of the car before it had rolled to a stop. The coyote stretched once he stood, cracking his neck once, twice, a third time while looking both ways down the road. His eyes found Brerington shortly afterward, and a quick nod was his only greeting. Two other officers stepped out of the car, the driver and another who seemed to have been situated in the backseat, and both immediately set off to the car's trunk.

"Thanks for comin' out on such short notice," Brerington told the coyote, his gruff voice low to match his drowsiness. "Wouldn't call ya if it weren't for… well, y'know…"

"Ain't no problem," nodded Perkins, holding up and wagging the plastic coffee cup he held in his paw. "Gas station's open late, bless 'em."

"Oh? Place with them lat-tays or whatever they call 'em, right? Wife loves 'em, but I don't get the point, I mean –"

Perkins cleared his throat. "Ain't we here for somethin'?" He averted his gaze toward the woods.

"Ah, shoot, right. All right."

Brerington stalked into the woods, murmuring something about underbrush that Perkins could not quite make out since he was talking away from him. The coyote glanced at his two underlings and nodded, jerking his head toward the cop and motioning with a paw to follow. The officers picked up a handled black box they held with one paw on either side and stalked behind Perkins, ducking under a low-hanging tree branch to find the meager path to the river.

The path was not long; the river was not far from County Line Road, and motorists traversing the long, straight-as-an-arrow roadway might have never known a body of water was that close had it not been for the clump of trees that separated it from view. It was clear to Perkins, too, even in the late hour with Brerington's flashlight the only illumination, that few walked this particular thoroughfare, and it certainly had no one to upkeep it, with unkempt bushes and errant branches and roots marring what may have once been a straight shot to the river.

When they reached the river, its waters were calm, quiet, the kind of serene scene the coyote expected, based on his knowledge of the thing when it made its way to Deerbrooke, where the county municipal offices were located. Light from downtown Bunnyburrow twinkled somewhat on the surface of the slowly moving current from the west, but what he mostly saw was a black torrent, barely discernable from the ground except for the gentle sound it emitted.

Once all were riverside, Brerington flicked his flashlight's illumination out onto the water, at first a seemingly futile gesture as the light – which seemed to be nearing a low point on battery power – barely showed up on the surface. But just as Perkins was about to say something, maybe lend the cop his own heavy duty flashlight, Perkins and his crew realized that his purpose was not to shine a light onto the water; rather, he was looking for something inside it.

And what they found, approximately a fourth of the way across the river, was a large tree branch that had fallen into the water however long before, swept down the stream until it apparently became caught somewhere on the riverbed, resting in the middle of the current until it could be freed once more, water rushing around the worn-down wood all the while.

Brerington's light shone onto the rightmost limb of the branch, and he waved it around in that spot a few times for good measure. Perkins could see why; there was something ensnared amid the mess of tree limbs, and it appeared to have limbs of its own.

"DeSoto, Miller, head on out."

Perkins' associates set down and opened the black box they had been carrying and began inflating a small dinghy that could carry two, maybe three smaller mammals. After a minute or so, both officers, a fellow coyote and a raccoon, pushed the inflatable onto the water, clambered inside and began rowing into the river, bowing slightly outward at first but then adjusting to the admittedly slow-moving current.

"When's the last time y'had to use one of these things?" The cop muttered the question as he and Perkins watched the two animals row into the river, his voice only audible due to the quiet of the evening.

Perkins sniffed, scratching at the fabric of his police blues on his left arm. "Think it's been about five years," he answered after a few moments' pause to consider the question. "River ain't this deep most places."

"Yeah, yep, guess that's true."

"Suppose that means it'd be a good investment on Bunnyburrow's part to get one of their own."

"I'll bring it up at the next city council meeting, but I ain't gonna get my hopes up. Cotton ain't approvin' much budget-wise these days, 'specially not from our department."

Perkins, whose eyes had been trained on the dinghy that had since reached the waterlogged tree branch, shot the cop a side-eyed glance. "Think it's still got to do with the whole Clover business a few months back?"

"Oh, _everything_ to do with that, I reckon, yessir."

The sound of a vehicle driving by on County Line Road filled the air, growing in intensity as its headlights neared the town and fading again once it slowed at the blinking red light that led to the intersection of Main Street. As though choreographed to the sound of rubber tires against pavement, the dinghy returned to the shore as the car passed, bumping gently against the shoreline.

Perkins held out a paw to steady the dinghy against the shore, laying eyes on its contents, which had been obscured by dimness (and the cop's underwhelming flashlight) prior to its return trip.

DeSoto scaled the shore ledge first. He turned around and, with Miller's help and Perkins' stabilization, pulled that which they had retrieved from the water onto the shore.

"I… uh… goodness…" the cop could not string together a full sentence as he shone his light onto the body before them, his paw visibly shaking the flashlight. "I hadn't hoped… but…"

"DeSoto, get the folks from Tri-Burrows General out here," ordered Perkins, swallowing once. "Amy should be heading operations there tonight, I think. Give her a call."

The coyote stalked into the woods, retrieving his cellphone from his uniform pocket, while Miller returned to shore as well and pulled the dinghy with him.

"You recognize her?" Perkins solemnly prodded the rabbit.

"Y-yeah, I do. And it…" the cop's voice was low, guttural, perhaps disbelieving, "…it don't make no sense."

"These things rarely do," Miller chimed in.

"But she ain't supposed to be here. Parents had 'er in school two counties away, and it's darn near finals week, I imagine."

Perkins frowned as he stared down at the rabbit, still fully clothed and slightly bloated from being underwater for as long as she had; he was no specialist in this field, but the coyote estimated it could not have been more than a few hours. Someone would have noticed in town, anyway.

Her neck was what bothered him the most. Everything else – the waterlogged blue flannel shirt, the blue jeans slightly torn in the knees, pockets that clearly still held _something_ in them, probably a wallet – that was not normal, but it at least pointed to something other than an accidental drowning via swimming, for whatever reason, in the river somewhere upstream. It could have been suicide, maybe a slip and fall, something like that, and the veteran officer might have let his heart rest at the notion of anything else.

Except that was not the angle at which a neck should be positioned, and it seemed unlikely that it would have happened from a fall and subsequent impact with the riverbed.

"Who is it, then?" Perkins asked.

"Bernice Thumper," the cop said. "One of the Thumper kids, yeah. You know 'em, don't you? Decent people, despite all that recent unpleasantness in town. Bernice was… they had her in a trade academy past East Meadow… I don't…"

"You're sure?"

"I've watched her grow up, man. I'm sure."

"General's on its way with the fixings," DeSoto's normally chipper vocal cut across Brerington as he returned from the woods. "Give 'em 20, maybe." He knelt beside the body of Bernice Thumper, daring not to touch but studying her features, his eyes lingering at different parts of her body with a discerning, studied look. "Perkins, you see the neck…?"

"Yeah, I did."

"Don't seem right."

"Was thinking the same thing."

Perkins straightened to his full height, massaging his forehead with a paw. Another car sped by on the nearby road.

"Brer?"

Brerington had been lost in his own thoughts, staring blankly at the river's slow-moving surface. "Oh, uh… uh huh?"

"We can handle it here if you want to attend to anything back in town. It's late, but maybe someone's still awake.

Brerington checked his watch and flinched at what he saw. "Yeah. Suppose yer right. I'll, uh… hold on, lemme get my phone, it's back in the car, might have my overnight guy head over…."

The county officers watched the rabbit disappear back into the brush, silence save for the sound of the water invading the space as he hiked back to the road. Murders were not uncommon in the county, but it was rare that any of them had to perform such a retrieval operation, especially since rivers of that size were not abundant in the Tri-Burrow area. In fact, Perkins was not totally sure that their methods of salvaging the Thumper girl had been completely copacetic, and he was expecting an earful from Amy and her team once they arrived.

"Hey, Perkins."

"Hm?"

Miller cleared his throat as he slowly removed the gloves that had covered his paws, DeSoto holding out a plastic bag in which to dispose of them. "Didn't notice 'til just now, but… well, I was gonna deflate the dinghy, and…"

The coyote followed the raccoon's glance toward the inflatable boat, pulling out his own flashlight and shining it onto the yellow rubbery surface. His eyes widened.

"Blood," he muttered.

"Not a lot of it, but yeah, blood. Don't know where it's comin' from, but it's somethin', all right."

Perkins' gaze was fixated on the red splotches against the yellow material, heaving a sigh uncharacteristic of the cop's usually nonplussed disposition.

"Fellas," he warned with a quick shake of his head, "think it's gonna be a long night."

Across town, Gideon Grey awoke at the sound of resilient pounding at his front door.

 **END**

 **Again, updates every Friday, unless someone reads this and tells me to put it out of its misery early.**

 **In which case I'll, er, update the other unfinished fics I have. Lol.**

 **Until then, thank you so much for reading! And if you never read the original, grab a stout (it's still stout drinking season dammit i swear) and strap in for 16 chapters of will-they-won't-they romance and foxes talking in southern accents from two years ago, I'm sure that sounds RIVETING.**


	2. Baptisms

**I had previously promised weekly updates each Friday, but I did that before releasing that this particular Friday was my birthday (I know, I know – ya didn't ask) and we have visitors in town this weekend, so, uh, have a Sunday update!**

 **Thanks to all who've read so far, given a favorite, etc. Appreciate ya.**

 **Not a TON going on in this chapter, but things're a-comin' 'round the mountain. Or the severely flat farmland. I dunno!**

 **The Dead Waltz**

 **YFWE**

 **Ch. 2: Baptisms**

Gideon Grey had slept well in recent months. Well, _well_ was a relative term, perhaps. He had slept fine, above average, better than usual. He had never been a sound sleeper, after all; most of his family had not been and likely would never be, except for Pa, whose snoring could be heard in practically every corner of the Grey homestead. But life was nearing normalcy again, and that meant a better-than-average sleep schedule, with intermittent twilight bathroom breaks and the occasional jolting awake from an ominous clap of thunder or harrowing nightmare all that kept him from uninterrupted slumber.

Of all things that could have disturbed his snooze before a 6 a.m. wakeup call the following morning, frenetic knocking at what sounded like his front door had not been especially high on Gideon's list of possibilities.

He was not sure how long the knocking had been going on before his brain finally registered what was going on, jerking him awake as he nearly fell out of his double bed. He proceeded to nearly trip over the nightstand, followed by the jeans he should have put away the night before, stumbling blindly toward the light switch that was at by the door to his bedroom, still a few paces away.

Once he located it and flipped on the light, the searing illumination causing him to wince as he clutched the doorframe, Gideon cursed internally and shook his left foot in the air, as though doing so would dull the now-throbbing pain he felt from having knocked it into so many things.

Whoever was at his front door was not giving up anytime soon. The knocking persisted, even as Gideon was certain anyone, even those right outside his home, would have heard him coming by then. The floorboards still creaked far more than he liked, after all; one day he would scrounge up enough cash to replace them himself with linoleum-coated wood or something of the sort, but although business was booming, there were more important things for the time being.

He had not even considered the idea that the mammal on the other side of the door could be an unfriendly presence as he neared the entrance, flipping on the kitchen light and a lamp by his living room's couch as he half-limped, putting only the slightest pressure onto his injured foot. But then, who would want anything with him? That whole ordeal with Skip Clover and Travis and Mike Robins and all that, that was in the past – six months back, to be exact. He had experienced little issue in Bunnyburrow since, or in any of the surrounding hamlets, really. Old news.

But then, the knocking was so intense….

Gideon heaved a sigh of frustration after reaching his front door, which vibrated fiercely with each pound. "A-all right," he announced finally, his voice cracking a bit at the beginning due to a few hours of no use; he resolved to get a drink of water when all this was over. "Yer gonna break the darn door. Calm down."

He unlatched the lock, decided he needed to invest in a peephole and put his paw to the cold, clammy metal of his doorknob. With one last intake of breath, he wrenched open the door...

…and found his brother on the other side.

"Something's happenin' in town."

"Colt, what are you… _what_?"

Colt Grey had a soda in one paw and his phone in the other. Despite the late hour, he appeared fairly awake and alert, a strange sight in a lot of ways – especially since it was a school night, and the high school senior was not graduated just yet.

"Something's happenin' in town," repeated Colt with a shrug, wagging his phone at Gideon. "Someone saw something in the river."

"Yer listenin' to the police scanners again on yer phone, aren'tcha?"

"Well, yeah, dunno how else I'd be able to."

"Right. And ya thought that the middle of the night was the right time to come poundin' on my door about it."

"Couldn't sleep. Pa's snorin'."

"OK, but you have a key."

"Can't find the key. Are you gonna let me in or not?"

Gideon rolled his eyes pronouncedly – even though he was unsure Colt could see the gesture through the darkness and the screen door – and stepped aside, allowing his younger brother passage. Usually he did not mind the company; Colt came over from the main house on the Grey farmstead all the time, usually because he wanted privacy from their parents. But it was rarely, if ever, in the middle of the night. Their father's snoring just must have been that loud.

As Colt plopped down on the living room couch, setting his can of soda on the coffee table and propping his paws up on it cross-legged as he buried his nose in his phone, Gideon walked to the kitchen sink to get that glass of water he so desperately needed; the scratch in his throat persisted, and it was a wonder he had been able to get through an entire conversation with Colt before wetting his whistle, short as it was.

The fox yawned, and his brother followed suit, albeit less markedly. He had half a mind to snap at Colt's yawn, adding some snark about how if he was so tired, why was he clearly still awake and bothering him, but thought better of it. After all, there might not be many more of these opportunities on the horizon; though none of the Grey family had ever attended college, Colt had received multiple offers from universities and colleges in the Tri-Burrows area and beyond, and Gideon would be shocked – annoyed, even – if he turned all of them down, even though it appeared there was a possibility of that very thing occurring.

"They stopped talkin'," Colt spoke again, eyes still transfixed on his phone. "Maybe they found what's out in the river."

"Prob'ly just some downed tree branch," answered Gideon plainly after taking a sip of his water. "Happens all the time."

The younger fox looked up with an accusatory expression, reaching forward to take a swig of his own drink. "Exactly," he droned, choking down another yawn in the process. "So why would they even be talkin' about it? Sounds like the county's down here, too."

"I dunno, man. It's dark out there. Might've thought they saw somethin' else."

Colt shifted his legs from the coffee table to the couch, reclining on the heirloom that had originally been located in the Greys' attic when Gideon decided to move into the little place and out of his childhood home half a football field's length away. In doing so, his head was faced away from Gideon, who leaned against the kitchen table as he drank his water, trying to ignore the fact that he forgot to add in ice, which made the stuff taste a little less savory than it might otherwise.

They sat in silence for a few moments, Colt shifting through apps on his phone while Gideon continued to get his bearings a bit. Not that he was trying to do so too much; he would rather stay at least somewhat sleepy so that he would be able to fall asleep quicker. He still had five hours before his true wakeup call, and he intended to doze for as much of that as possible.

Swallowing, Gideon's voice, its usual timbre now that it was appropriately wetted, cut through the otherwise peaceful evening: "You been on that app a lot since you got that phone, huh?"

His brother shrugged again, uncrossing his legs and then re-crossing them with the right atop the left this time. "Yeah," he said with a quick nod. "Glad Ma and Pa were willin'. This has done wonders for my campaign."

That caused Gideon to chuckle softly, a response with which he had to tread lightly, since two months prior – when the word "campaign" had first been uttered from the high schooler's snout – a more pronounced bark of a laugh had been met with a day-and-a-half of silence from the younger fox, his pride clearly hurt even though he would not admit it.

Gideon proceeded more delicately this time. "I'll bet. But surely that don't include trollin' the police scanners 'round Bunnyburrow every night…"

"Does, actually. I gotta stay informed with what's goin' on, Gid. My opponents already got ways of knowin'. And maybe if I'm listenin' late at night, I'll catch something they don't," Colt replied matter-of-factly.

Things had been this way ever since Colton "Colt" Grey had thrown his metaphorical hat into the ring for mayor of Bunnyburrow two months before (a literal hat, too; the town's tradition called for such a display at one of the town's many festivals throughout the year, tossing wide-brimmed hats normally used in farming into some pen in the grass by the main recreation building while a host of folks cheered, whooped and hollered. Gideon had never quite understood it, though he had to admit it was far more entertaining than simply reading about someone filing the necessary paperwork with the city council.

Though no one younger than 40 years old had ever served as Bunnyburrow's mayor in its history (Foxgrove had a 30-year-old once, but he had lasted just two weeks before a scandal involving, tellingly, wool), the minimum age was technically 18, a fact Colt had learned at Bunnyburrow High School's political science class three months prior. He had come home that day with a gleam in his eye and retreated into his bedroom, emerging only for tape, scissors, markers and other utensils their mother had stashed in an arts-and-crafts-esque drawer in the kitchen.

He had long missed the deadline to apply and did not even have the necessary signatures to appear on the ballot even if he did, but Colt was engrossed in becoming the first write-in candidate to win the town's mayoral election anyway, despite the odds stacked against him (and the heart his family members lacked to tell him it was an unlikely endeavor). He claimed he had convinced half of his class' 18-year-olds to vote for him, but even that would barely make a dent in the tallies of the front-runners if it happened.

And yet…

"It's all about showin' up," Colt said, as though he had somehow heard Gideon's internal inquiries. "Zootopia doesn't have a two-party system anymore, so why does Bunnyburrow? I like Cotton all right, but she let that whole Clover mess happen right under her nose. And Parsley, well…"

"I swear, Colt, if you spit in this house…"

"I'm not gonna spit, Gid."

"You spit every time you say Parsley's name, including in Ma and Pa's house."

"Yeah, well, their floors are easier to clean."

"Good poi – I mean, _that ain't the point_." Gideon threw his arms in the air, thankfully having set down his water glass a few moments before. "Ah, shoot, whatever. You've mentioned the Clover 'n' Parsley stuff a million times now. We get it. Shouldn't you be sleepin' for school tomorrow?"

"Shouldn't you be sleepin' for your hot date tomorrow?" Colt replied, waving a paw dismissively.

Gideon grumbled softly, "Y'know, I really hate when you call 'em that."

Colt ignored his brother's protest. "But it _is_ tomorrow morning, right?"

"S'posed to be, yep. And I _was_ sleeping, 'til you showed up bangin' on my door in the middle of the night."

"Fair assessment." For the first time that evening, Colt set down his phone, laying it against the coffee table and sitting up to face Gideon, taking another drink from his soda can. "Think they're doing any good?"

Gideon shrugged. "Last one was the best one yet, I think. Belle's really openin' up. I might even be –"

"Looking forward to it?" Colt answered for him.

"Yeah. Guess I am a little."

That morning was scheduled to be the fifth meeting between Gideon Grey and Belle Thumper, formerly long-simmering enemies from their school age but now on better terms following the uncovering of former constable Skip Clover's conspiracy against the predators of Bunnyburrow and the surrounding area half a year prior. Belle had been to a therapist shortly afterward – now she and Gideon had at least something in common – and he had recommended the get-togethers, and at a public place, no less.

That spot eventually became The Icy Koala, which Gideon appreciated since it allowed him to get into the good graces of the owner, Sheila, though she had been fairly civil, if not friendly to him in recent months, the scars of the past slowly healing.

At first, their dialogue was stilted, almost forced. Gideon did not want to come off that way, but it worried him, his mind racing miles and miles a minute as he pored over every little thing he had said and could say, his nervous stutter returning like a tic that would always swim in the undercurrents of his being – similar to how he first approached Judy Hopps in their adult years, even though he had since grown to consider her a friend and, as such, did not struggle around her anymore.

But the last meeting had been their best yet, he thought. They did not really talk about each other and the pasts of the Grey and Thumper families per se; instead, it was a mostly mundane discussion about their lives since last they had seen each other – what was going on their farms, Colt's hilariously ill-advised mayoral run, the latest Thumper clan's group of would-be high school graduates, Belle's parents' intense support of Stone Parsley for mayor that their daughter did not quite share. It was, simply, average, and it was one of Gideon's favorite conversations of his life.

"Well, you can go back to bed if ya want," said Colt. "I'll be quiet. I've got headphones." He pulled a cord from his jeans pocket.

"Yer just gonna stay on the couch?"

"You've got spare blankets, don't you?"

"Yeah, but… wait, if you've got headphones, why didn't ya just use 'em in yer room?"

"Clearly you haven't heard Pa's snoring in a while."

He had not.

Yawning again, Gideon picked up his now-half-full glass of water and clicked off the kitchen light. "Fine," he muttered. "G'night. Have fun with the, uh, scanner."

The thought of what had been in the river briefly crossed his mind as he lay in bed, but sleep thankfully did not elude him for long.

xXxXxXx

Gideon and Belle usually chose a spot in the corner of The Icy Koala for their rendezvous. Not because they did not want to be seen, but since these meetings had the potential to stretch on for a little longer than one's average coffee break, and they wanted to stay out of the way.

The fox was not shocked to find he was the first one to arrive, since it had happened once before – their first get-together, when he assumed Belle had stood him up and he could leave within 10 minutes or so, though she was in the door shortly after him. He resigned to order a coffee himself, head to the back corner and wait patiently, maybe pick up the Tri-Burrows newspaper while he was at it and see if there was anything worthwhile to read.

In the process, he attempted to avoid the stares of a few of the approximately dozen folks inside that he could feel trained on him the moment the bell at the front door jingled his entrance. He expected this, since it had happened every time he had visited The Icy Koala in some capacity, and he could not blame them; it was not every day any predator let out the growl he did in any public place, let alone a mild-mannered storeowner's equally unassuming coffee shop in a fairly sleepy town like Bunnyburrow. Despite Travis' egging-on of him that day to elicit such a response, he would not have blamed Sheila if she had suggested against his re-entry anytime since.

Instead…

"The usual, Gideon?" came the koala's cheerful question instead. Gideon could tell when Sheila had consumed enough cups of her store's own caffeinated liquid depending on the degree of her sprightliness, and it appeared that today was a good day – and that, somehow, always reassured him further.

"I think so, Sheila, thank ya very much."

He took his seat at the table in the corner while Sheila got to brewing, the slim din of the shop returning with hushed conversation following the entrance of the town's infamous resident. This might have caused Gideon some grief or anxiety, and perhaps he would drum nervously on the table with his paws as he waited for his coffee and guest to arrive, purposely avoiding eye contact with anyone else in the room.

But he expected this by now in a place like Bunnyburrow where folks gossiped, spread rumors and the like. Things had gotten better since the Clover incident, but he always knew there were some deep-seated opinions in the Tri-Burrows area that would not die off just because some formerly local rabbit and a fox from the city were able to show them the errors of their prejudice. Least of all the Thumpers, who remained slightly aloof toward Gideon despite their occasional pie orders and Belle's near-weekly meetings with him. In particular, Blake and Billy, Belle's closest brothers in age, had not taken much of a liking to him, though Belle's sister Bernice did not seem to mind his company the few times they had been in close-enough proximity of each other.

And anyway, Sheila's cheerful disposition had calmed his nerves a bit, something he hoped caffeine would assist as well. It tended to be a crapshoot on that front; sometimes he felt more awake, alert and able to tackle the day than ever before, but other times it only inflamed his anxiety, or at least brought about a similar feeling. He was leaning toward the former.

"Here ya go, hon." Sheila had arrived before he had even noticed her approach with his usual coffee order. "She gonna be in soon?" the koala added with a smile.

"Aw, thanks, Sheila, I appreciate it," spoke Gideon jovially. "Yeah, I reckon so." He cocked his head to the left. "I gotta say, yer awfully chipper today. What's the occasion, besides gettin' yer favorite customer somethin' to drink?"

Sheila laughed, albeit a bit nervously, and briefly Gideon thought his joke had not gone over well. Of course he was not her favorite customer, growling incident in the shop or not.

But there was something else, and the koala lowered her voice a bit as she spoke, eyes darted to the left and right to make sure no one was eying their conversation.

"Trying to keep up morale," she said, her voice dropping even lower in volume as she spoke. "You hear about what happened last night down by the river?"

"Colt said somethin' about it when he was listenin' to the police scanner," said Gideon thoughtfully, scratching at his chin. "I thought it was a branch or somethin'."

Sheila sighed as she set down Gideon's mug, shaking her head with a solemn, closed-eyes look. "Body," she whispered, and if she knew anything else at that moment, she did not divulge the information, adding a sad shrug before returning to the front bar, where a new customer had begun standing since their interaction began.

The fox felt his heart pine for the family of whomever had been found, somberly glancing around the coffee shop to read the faces of others – but most seemed engrossed in light-hearted, if not completely average conversation. He wondered if the news of the death had not yet been spread around by authorities yet, even though news flew fairly rapidly in Bunnyburrow, so he felt a twinge of doubt about that. At the very least, its identity may not have been known yet; if it had been found in the river, there were chances of bloating and other factors that might have required a DNA test.

He thought briefly of calling his parents and making sure they were safe and sound, but thought better of it; they had been in bed when Colt came over that night, and that was when the body had been found. Maybe a cousin, though? What were Sharla and Bobby up to? He took out his phone and thought to at least scroll through Furbook, which he rarely used except for Real Good Baked Stuff promos, wondering if something could be found there.

There was a text on the lock screen of his phone, instead, one that must have arrived during Sheila and his brief talk, since he had not remembered feeling its vibration. Gideon winced when he saw the name – Belle – and the word 'sorry' preceding the rest of the message, which was cut off by the text's brief preview.

The rest of the message was still fairly curtailed, offering few details, though the ones in there caused Gideon's heart to sink.

" _Sorry, can't make it today. Would have told you sooner but forgot. It might be a while. I'll text."_

The vagueness of the message irked him slightly – she just forgot? And _what_ would be a while? – but Gideon knew by now to not press these things, especially when at least an acquaintanceship had formed from their previous meetings and, goodness, he certainly did not want to ruin the progress he had made.

He sighed, glancing down at his coffee and wondering if he could possibly get it poured into a to-go cup instead, though he also figured that a few minutes spent reading the paper in a somewhat secluded spot would not be the worst way to spend his morning before the errands he had to run later. Though his morning's plans had been dashed, that did not have to mean he could not maintain his previously cheery mood.

But he knew he should respond at least, and after thinking of the best way to broach the topic, he nodded to himself and began to type.

" _aw shoot well no problem. hope everythings ok."_

He thought for a moment, brain scraping through the possibility of an addendum he was not sure was completely appropriate given their relationship, and decided to send an additional text anyway.

" _if you wanna talk about things let me know. just if you want, no pressure."_

He immediately wished he could take it back – what if she said no? What if he was being too forward? Did they know each other enough to talk through the other's problems with each other? And what if there was not actually any issue, that she simply had to attend to some other business and they would reschedule a few days later? Though the 'it might be a while' part mostly steered him from that conclusion. What would be a while? And why? Had he done something wrong? Did it have something to do with Belle's parents?

It surprised Gideon a bit when he received another text shortly afterward, again from Belle. He clutched the device in his paw, opening his lock screen without even glancing at the message preview.

" _Baseball field, 20 mins_."

He did not understand why the baseball field out by the fairgrounds was any better than The Icy Koala, but after paying his bill (and getting that to-go cup), Gideon was on his way without a second thought.

 **END**

 **Looking forward to the next one; think that's gonna really set this thing into motion. But in the meantime, I dropped a few details in this chapter that'll end up having some bearing on the story going forward – all of which is to say, this wasn't a total waste of your time by reading this chapter, I promise! I think.**

 **Thanks for reading to the end. Hi, there! How ya doin'? Good day? Fine day, Sunday. Or, uh, whatever day you're reading this on. All the days are good! Yeah, that's it!**

 **Appreciate it, though. For reals. See ya next Friday!**


	3. Riptide

**I keep saying I'm going to update on Fridays, but I haven't actually updated on one yet three chapters in, so I'm just gonna nix that!**

 **But despite the 10- or 11-day wait in between this chapter and last, I promise this is still very much my focus. It's just been a tough few days, that's all. And last weekend was particularly silly. It involves a terrible Uber driver, a friend's lost article of clothing and a 24-hour journey to get it back. I'll leave it at that.**

 **Actually, it'd probably be a more interesting story than this, eh? *studio audience laughter***

 **But really, thanks for coming out and supporting this here third chapter of "The Dead Waltz." Hoping you dig it!**

 **The Dead Waltz**

 **YFWE**

 **Ch. 3: Riptide**

It was said there were but a handful of constants in the life of a Tri-Burrows resident: death, taxes and more rabbits than any non-censusworker could keep track of.

Every year or so, however, another facet of country life joined their ranks, and Gideon Grey was passing about 15 a minute at that moment.

Local elections were always a hotbed of activity in the burrows, what with the ever-changing population and the ability – or, at least, the _potential_ – for candidates to sway swathes of newly eligible voters each year. Though Bunnyburrow in particular lacked amenities such as a robust police and/or fire department and other things a city dweller might take for granted, its city council and mayoral elections remained hotly contested affairs, and each election season, multi-colored signs would dot the roadsides leading into and out of the country and in Main Street business windows, imploring passersby to exercise their divine liberty and cast a ballot for this or that person.

There were more than usual that year, Gideon noticed, especially in the country. But even the well- manicured lawns of downtown had gotten into the mood – given the election's imminence, one could argue they were at their overall peak, having reached critical mass. On certain street corners, it was a wonder the sheer mass of them had not spilled out onto the road.

Briefly, as Gideon pulled his delivery van into the gravel parking lot of the baseball field, he thought he might have seen, amid the standard plastic signs with laminates meant to withstand adverse weather conditions, a white piece of paper taped to a telephone pole that implored readers to "vote for Grey" for mayor in nondescript black permanent marker, but he could not be certain.

Though baseball season had kicked off a few weeks prior, the complex was mostly empty that morning, since school-age children were still in class and the adult-level beer leagues were generally evening affairs. In fact, Gideon might have thought it to be completely barren was it not for one of the benches placed between the lot and one of the baseball diamonds, on which a rabbit sat, head faced away from the oncoming truck.

Belle did not turn around even when he pulled up, tires crackling slowly across the gravel before rolling to a stop near the bench. As Gideon neared, he realized it might have been because she was on her phone, head downturned as she tapped out what seemed to be a long text. He did not know the rabbit to be a prolific texter, so clearly the message held some level of importance, her unwillingness to even remotely notice his truck excepted.

Gideon sighed as he shut off the motor, tapping his paws on the steering wheel twice and taking a deep breath before stepping out. The morning sun had ducked behind a hefty, fluffy cloud for the time being, and he decided he could do without his sunglasses, though he stuck them into his shirt pocket should he need them later. After all, he was not sure how long this would take.

"You walk?"

It was the first question Gideon could think of, and it came from a pang of genuine curiosity. At first, he thought he might have missed another vehicle in the lot somewhere, but once he parked, he realized his was the only one in sight.

"Ran."

Though her usual candor shone through in the one-word response, Gideon recognized unease in Belle's answer, perhaps diffidence. And it did not seem to stem from her apparent brisk jog from home into town – not a lengthy distance, as the Thumpers were one of the first out of town, but sizable nonetheless.

"In those?" he asked, sidling up to the bench alongside the rabbit, eying briefly the pair of tight-fitting blue jeans she wore that even he, fairly unathletic for a good portion of his life, recognized as injurious to sporty pursuits.

"Last-minute decision," she huffed. "And all our cars were spoken for." She had not yet averted her gaze from her phone, even though she was no longer texting.

Gideon smiled. "Young'ns take all of 'em on a joyride to West Meadow again?"

He tried to joke with Belle fairly often – at least, in the way he knew how – and most of the time, he was at least able to elicit a begrudged groan, if not an earnest laugh.

This time, nothing. Her only response: "Sit down."

It was a long bench, one that could probably fit four full-sized bunnies, maybe three foxes. And that it did during baseball season, when rec leagues and Bunnyburrow High School made the trek to the complex they now faced. Gideon could recall many evenings there, dragged along by his mother while they watched Colt play third base against Podunk or Lakeland Grove or whichever team was in town that week. It might have even been on that exact bench, or at least that precise location; the town had revitalized a few of them in recent years due to aging.

Nonetheless, Belle had situated herself on the far end of the seat, and Gideon, not wanting to pry, took the opposite side. Together, they stared out into the expanse before them, separated from one of the diamonds by fencing that protected onlookers from foul balls. The wind rustled the trees of the forest past the complex, but Gideon barely felt it where he sat.

After pregnant silence, Belle's voice, direct but restrained, cut across the stillness before them. "Y'hear what happened last night?"

"I-in town?" asked Gideon, cocking his head to the side. "Last night?"

"It was her."

"It was who – I mean, who's her? And are ya…"

" _Bernice_." Suddenly, Belle's voice was far above its normal volume, and it wavered as she turned to Gideon for the first time that morning. "Bernice was in the river."

She had never been one to show much emotion in front of Gideon, and that had not quite changed wholesale, but aside from her abrupt outburst, what the fox noticed most were the rabbit's eyes, usually sullen and narrowed as though they were part of a permanent scowl that even the funniest joke could not ail. Here, they were only a little wider, and he noticed the depth of the dark blue in her pupils, like the color of the sky immediately around a shining moon. They were puffy, too; she had been crying, though he was not sure how recently.

"My g-goodness, Belle, I… I…" he stammered.

"You don't have to say anything." Belle had altered her gaze again, staring out over the baseball field and kicking coolly at a rock in the ground in front of them. "In fact, I'd rather y'didn't."

Gideon had rarely needed to deal with death. His mother's parents had passed on when he was too young to have even remembered them, and his grandmother on his father's side had abandoned the family when his dad was entering middle school, her subsequent whereabouts either unknown to that day or concealed by her former kin – not that he cared too much to find her, if she was still alive at all. Even most of Gideon's aunts, uncles, cousins and the like were around, though he only saw some of them here and there.

So he felt ill-equipped to say much of anything to Belle, who had lost not only a sister but also a close one – a littermate. Luckily, she did not seem to be seeking comfort, though it made him wonder why she had asked to meet up at all.

A thought did finally come to his mind, and without a word to Belle he stood and hurried back to his truck. He left his keys on the bench to signify to Belle he was not leaving for good, an action he sensed she recognized when he heard her clothes shift against the bench's wood as he walked away.

After a minute or two of rummaging through the back of his truck, dodging a few boxes of produce from the Hopps farm that had shifted since pickup, he returned to the bench anything but empty-pawed.

"Cherry," he announced once he caught the rabbit's eye, opening the box in his paws on cue to reveal one of the pies he had baked the night before. "Y'all are always orderin' cherry, and I know that's what y'got last time at the Koala, so I figure y'like it." His line of sight traveled to his right paw, which held a plastic fork. "I've been meanin' to go stock up on utensils, so this ain't out of a box, but it's clean, I promise."

A few moments passed before Belle finally took the box containing the pie, which Gideon had quickly fashioned two slices from on a whim. She did not speak, merely accepting it in her paws with her eyes transfixed on the pastry before her.

"…thanks. Thanks, Gideon. That's real nice of you."

Briefly – but only briefly; he might have imagined it – Gideon thought he saw those dark blue eyes water a little.

"Sure thing. Food's 'bout the only thing I know that'll cheer most anyone up. Got me through some rough times in school, even." Gideon patted his stomach as he sat back down. "Got the pounds to prove it."

"That mean you're still sad all the time?" Belle shot him a small grin as she dug her fork into the pie.

"Naw. Just ain't done anything to take 'em off." He was not sure if his excitement that Belle Thumper had made her first joke to him was overt – even if it had been at his expense.

Belle swallowed her first bite of the pie and waved her fork through the air at Gideon. "Y'know," she started, shrugging once before readying a second bite, "Blake and Billy work out every mornin'."

"Yeah, I see 'em joggin' out on some of my deliveries sometime," Gideon said with a nod.

"If you wanted – I mean, if you cared about losing any weight – I bet you could join up with them."

Gideon barked a laugh, perhaps a little louder than he meant. "I'm gonna pass on that one, Belle," he confessed with another small giggle. "For one, I couldn't keep up…"

"True. They really move."

"…and anyway, I dunno if they really, uh, y'know…"

"Like you?"

"…yeah."

"Oh, they don't."

"W-wait, but you said –"

"I know what I said. They wouldn't coddle you, though. You need that."

"Caw-dle?"

Belle rolled her eyes. "Pamper. Baby."

"Ah. Y'have a point."

Belle continued to chew, and Gideon did not mind the sound for the next minute or so; it was better than silence, an immovable wall between the fox and the rabbit that might have stayed standing had he not offered the pie. Or perhaps it was never there, and he was either talking up his pastries or overstating Belle's hesitance to open up. She had asked him there, after all, had she not?

She had practically scarfed down two slices once she finally set down the box. The rabbit swallowed and, still avoiding Gideon's gaze, looked out over the baseball field.

"I don't think I've processed it yet." Gideon was surprised she had offered up the statement, despite her very recent insistence that he not ask her about her sister's death. She glanced in Gideon's direction, though her gaze was now situated toward the ground. "None of us have, I think. Ma's upset, but Pa, he's… I think stoic's the word, but he's always been that way. Deals with it in his own way."

Belle took a deep breath, sighed and looked away again, to her left, toward downtown.

"…I s'pose you probably wanna know why I asked you to meet up, huh?"

Gideon shrugged. "Was there a reason? Seems like y'just needed someone to talk to."

"Eh, maybe." True to her words, she seemed unsure as she answered. "Gettin' away from the house was nice, too. But there's… somethin' else."

She stood for the first time since Gideon had arrived, setting her fork back into the pie box and wiping errant crumbs from her paws onto her jeans. Even standing, she barely rose above Gideon's eye level; as far as fully grown rabbits went, Belle was shorter than most, though what she lacked in height she certainly made up for with spunk.

"You're gonna think I'm crazy…" she started, kicking another rock on the ground. Then, she faced forward, looking Gideon straight in the eye. "But I think someone killed Bernice."

"Y-yeah? How come?"

"I don't know, I just…"She looked toward the sky, where the sun was creeping out from behind a cloud yet again. "OK, look." Back to Gideon. "Bernice ain't been around much lately; she's been at school in East Meadow, this trade college thing. She came home occasionally, but she always told us before she stopped by. And…" she paused, "…she didn't this time. It was almost finals week."

The fox scratched at his chin thoughtfully. "Yeah, well… maybe it was a surprise?" he offered.

"Bernice _hated_ surprises."

"Ah." Gideon had not known Bernice well.

"Point is," she continued, her voice rising in volume as she spoke, "she wasn't supposed to be here. And then suddenly she shows up… dead in a river? She could swim, too. She was the best swimmer of any of us."

Belle had begun pacing in front of Gideon so quickly that he was beginning to have trouble keeping up with her movement; he took a quick swig of his to-go coffee in an effort to wake him up a bit more.

"We might know more after an autopsy, but that could take weeks." Normally a fairly reserved individual (Gideon surmised she must have gotten it from her father), the rabbit was more animated than Gideon had ever seen her. "And what if she was trying to tell us something? Coming to tell us _we_ were in danger? But someone got to her first? Lot of good autopsy results a few weeks from now will do us if someone's already offed the rest of us, too."

"Whoa, whoa, calm down." Gideon moved to stand himself, though he did not dare try to physically disrupt Belle's pacing. "Hold up. Who'd want to hurt y'all? That don't make sense."

"Gideon, this town doesn't like us much right now, not after the Clover business," Belle stated firmly, throwing both her paws up in the air. "It doesn't help that Pa went to bat for Clover after the whole fiasco at the Fall Harvest Festival behind closed doors. Got out somehow anyway, got around to the people in town who'd care. He's a dumb ol' buck sometimes."

Sensing Gideon's wide-eyed gaze, Belle shot the fox a side-eyed glance. "I don't agree with him, by the way. Clover was garbage. I see that now. That's his grave, and I ain't getting dragged down into it."

"Sure…" Gideon started, pushing away the memories of a few months prior, when Belle had been leading the charge against allowing predators into the Fall Harvest Festival at all. Despite their meetings, Gideon knew full well Belle Thumper was a contentious presence in Bunnyburrow, her protests at City Hall well-documented and exceedingly anti-predator in their language. Remaining quiet in the months since did not hurt her reputation, but even Gideon knew that a sea change was unlikely and that what she was saying now about her father might have not been the full truth.

Still, he listened. Even if their meetings had been practically prescribed by their shrinks, he had enjoyed them, and seemingly, so had Belle. Maybe he would not have thought that before that day, but here the rabbit was now, confiding some extremely controversial opinions in him.

Perhaps, he wondered, he was all that might listen to her.

"I just… I don't know, Gideon. Maybe it's denial; I bet my doc will say it's denial, stages of grief or all that nonsense. And maybe it is, but I just… I don't know." She sighed and resumed her pacing. "It doesn't sit right with me, the way this went down. And with this election coming up, maybe I just don't want it to fall by the wayside. Get forgotten. Y'know?"

"Aw, I'm sure Brerington and his team'll do everything they can."

"Psh. Yeah, right. Brerington cares more than Clover ever did, but he's a klutz. Fell backward into the job. This town needs to invest in an actual police force, but that's a whole 'nother story." Belle sniffed, spat and continued pacing.

Gideon bit his lip. "So you… don't trust 'em to find out what happened to Bernice?"

"That's right. I don't."

"Maybe y'should up it to the county, then?"

Belle shook her head and crossed her arms. "No, no, that'll take even longer. The seasons are changing; it's getting warmer. They'll have their paws full."

"Belle, I guess I just don't know what ya want me to say, then."

"Judy."

Gideon had not even quite realized he had reached out a paw to stop Belle's pacing until it had happened, and he was sure she could read the hesitation on his face.

"Judy? Like, Judy Hopps?" he asked.

"I don't know another Judy, do you?"

"Well, there's my cousin, and then the new evening shift waitress at the Koala, and – w-wait, that ain't the point. How's Judy gonna help?" Gideon pointed his paw in the direction he assumed Zootopia was in, though internally he realized he had no idea what direction he was pointing in and could have very easily been facing the exact opposite direction. "She's off in Zootopia, she's got her own job, her own problems."

Belle frowned and then sighed, wrestling her shoulder away from Gideon's soft grip. "No, I know. I just… her and the fox –"

"His name's Nick. He's got a name. We've been through this."

"—they might have an idea on how to tackle this, wouldn't they? I mean, they're professionals. I'd ask 'em, but… Judy's still got me blocked on Furbook."

"She blocked you on Furbook?"

"Or maybe I never friended her. I don't know, it doesn't matter, Gideon. Can you… maybe call her?"

Gideon wanted to roll his eyes, but he held back, lest he make her fussier.

"And say what?" said the fox, pulling his phone out anyway. "'Hey, Judy, it's Gideon. I know yer busy 'n' all, prob'ly tacklin' some perp or drug-bustin' or whatever it is you do, but Belle – y'know, Belle, that rabbit yer prob'ly not much of a fan of, yeah that's her – she wants you to solve a maybe-murder from hundreds of miles away, how's that sound?'"

"It wouldn't hurt to ask… would it?"

The fox sighed, considering the sight in front of him: Belle, chest heaving slightly due to what was probably too much pacing, staring expectantly at him and then at the phone in his paw. He noticed those eyes of hers again, and this time, he sensed a new emotion within them, one quite dissimilar from the vague indifference that usually occupied them.

It was hope, maybe. Hopefulness. But most of all, her eyes were pleading with him, even if her voice was not.

And that was what caused Gideon Grey to make a call to Zootopia in the middle of Judy Hopps' shift at the Zootopia Police Department.

 **END**

 **Next chapter's gonna introduce a few of the characters you're actually gonna see more often than not in this story. Does that include Judy? Maybe Nick? Someone else entirely? I DUNNO.**

 **OK, uh, I do know, I'm just being abstruse.**

 **Anyway, thank you for reading! Super stoked to get the next chapter underway. Look for it soon!**


	4. Down By the Water

**YOOOOO, let's get this one going again.**

 **Didn't mean to go a month in between updates, and that's unlikely to happen again. Heading out of the country for a bit will throw ya off, I swear.**

 **Thanks for sticking around, if you're still following along! And super appreciate all the feedback thus far here and on other sites. Y'all are rad.**

 **The Dead Waltz**

 **Ch. 4: Down By the Water**

"Gideon, I literally just walked outside to take lunch! What's up?"

Even if Judy Hopps had not told Gideon Grey of her exact intentions at that moment, he would have certainly known she was at least in transit. Though she had accepted his MuzzleTime call with video of her own, she was only partially in frame and would occasionally fall out of view entirely, only to reappear moments later.

"H-hi, Judy," the fox greeted, shooting a glance at Belle Thumper, who stood off to the side, out of his phone camera's reaches. "Sorry, this a bad time?"

He heard rather than saw Judy laugh on the other end of the call as trees, cars and other mammals flowed past the bunny's path like multi-colored blurs. The movement was nearly making him sick, and he had half a mind to pass the phone to Belle, though he thought better of it and choked down his nausea instead.

"I wouldn't've picked up if it was – especially a video call," Judy said, her face coming back into view as she, ears raised, looked around her, seemingly searching for something; he later learned it to be a place to sit. "Hold on, there's a table over there…"

Once she was seated, she situated her phone in a way that allowed the fox to, at last, see her face neatly in frame – maybe propped up against an umbrella pole or something, he could not tell. Judy smiled, either oblivious to the mammals that continued to speed past her or simply used to them and unwilling to allow the bustle of downtown Zootopia to distract her. Gideon was not as seasoned at doing so.

"You know, I was gonna text you sometime today," she spoke again, brushing her gray ears flat against the back of her head. "I saw Gareth yesterday."

"Oh! Is that so?" Gareth was one of their former classmates, a sheep who had moved from Bunnyburrow about a year before to pursue some sort of job in tech, though Gideon could not recall what type.

"Yeah, he didn't see me, but I know that was him. He looked well? Frazzled, but fine." She cocked her head and smiled. "I'd say you're looking about the opposite, Gid. How's it going? How's Bunnyburrow? See Mom and Dad today?"

Judy had a tendency to rattle off multiple questions when speaking casually to someone she had not seen in a while, all in rapid-fire succession. At least, this had been Gideon's experience, which probably had something to do with the fact that the rabbit and the fox generally went a few months in between conversations, save for the occasional text.

Mostly, he was surprised he apparently looked whatever the opposite of frazzled was. What on earth was the Zootopia tech industry doing to Gareth?

"Things're fine, Bunnyburrow's fine, yer parents are… fine, well, last I saw 'em, anyway" mumbled Gideon, squinting his eyes as he thought through each of her questions. "Yeah, uh… guess everything's just sorta fine."

"That's great to hear!" Judy exclaimed, sending him a toothy grin. "No news is good news sometimes, right?"

"Er, well –"

"By the way, thanks again for the latest pie shipment," she cut across him, possibly not even registering that Gideon had begun speaking again. "Nick's mom _raved_ about the lemon meringue one, said she needed the recipe." Judy set one elbow up on the table and leaned into it, resting her chin in her paw. "She can be persistent, so I dunno if you're looking to guard your recipes, but…"

Gideon allowed himself to chuckle. "Oh, I don't mind. That's Ma's recipe, and she prob'ly got it off some box anyway."

"The secret's revealed!" Judy mock-gasped, her paws flying to her mouth, eyes widened.

"I know, I know, I'm such a phony," said Gideon with a grin. He glanced at Belle, who was watching the conversation anxiously, and when their eyes met, she shot him a bothered look, one eye narrowing a little.

"S-sorry. I, uh, Judy, I actually got a l-little somethin' to ask ya," started the fox, lightly scratching at the back of his neck as he stared back down at the phone screen. "You wouldn't happen to, uh… I mean… what's the rest of yer week lookin' like at work?" he blurted out finally.

Judy chuckled, leaning back against the side of whatever building her seat was situated next to. "Why, Gid? Wanna visit?"

"No! Actually, sorta the opposite…" he trailed off. "As in, maybe y'might be able to, I dunno, come to Bunnyburrow for a few days?"

This elicited a groan from the rabbit, who slumped noticeably in her seat.

"Wha – did I say somethin' wrong?"

"No, no, you didn't…" said Judy, frowning. "You just reminded me of the rest of my week, that's all…"

"Yeah?"

"Precinct's swamped right now; I gotta work overtime the next day or two at least," she said, her usual exuberance when discussing police matters eluding her for once. "This weekend, for instance – you know the Carrots Day Festival back home? The Fall Harvest Fest? Imagine like 10 of those going on at the _exact same time_ across the city."

Given Gideon's memory of the most recent Fall Harvest Festival, he did not wish to imagine it tenfold.

"So we gotta prep for that," Judy continued, "and… yeah, that plus everything else we'd usually have to do, it's been a little much. I don't know if I'd be able to get _halfway_ to Bunnyburrow for a few hours if I wanted to."

"Shoot." Gideon grimaced as he shot Belle a brief glance, barely registering her crestfallen expression. "And… Nick?"

"Nick's worse off than me. I at least have a vacation day or two to spare if I really needed it. He doesn't. Just _had_ to take that trip with Finnick to Pawaii the other month…"

"Ah," said Gideon flatly. "Well, no problem, ain't the end of the world."

"Why?" Some of Judy's cheeriness had returned to her voice. "What's going on at home? Everything's OK, right?"

Gideon hesitated; Judy was clearly unaware of Bernice Thumper's death, otherwise she would have at least mentioned it by now. And while he doubted telling her would change her disposition (or her stress level) much, then again, a suspicious death in Bunnyburrow was not all too common, and then there was the fact that it was a rabbit…

The fox swallowed his protests and willed himself forward.

"I mean, all yer friends 'n' family are OK," he started, "it's just… I bet yer parents'll tell ya soon enough, but they, uh, they found Bernice Thumper's body in the river last night."

"They _what_?" Judy's face was suddenly much closer to her phone screen, probably to hear better. Her paws gripped the edges of the device.

"Yeah, found out this mornin'. Sorta the talk of the town."

"Cheese and crackers. Did they… do they know what happened? Was it…?" The rabbit stopped herself short of whatever she was thinking, and Gideon could not tell what she internally suspected.

"No. That's… sorta what I wanna try to find out. And why I asked ya."

Judy sighed, leaning back from the phone again and folding her arms across her chest.

"Let me guess. _She_ asked you."

Gideon tried to ignore Belle's noticeable bristling at the other end of the park bench.

"W-well—"

"No, no, I get it." Judy sighed again, though this time it was more of a forceful exhale of air through her nostrils. "She isn't… Belle helped us take down Clover, a little, _I guess_ , it's just…" She threw her paws in the air, clutched her now-raised ears with them momentarily and looked up at the phone screen. "Sorry," she offered finally. "Shouldn't let my, uh, _distaste_ for that family get in the way of this. Especially with Bernice…"

Belle had stood from the bench in the midst of this conversation, mouth open as though to shout across Judy's meandering sentences, and though Gideon outstretched his arm to try to calm her, and despite it pacifying for her for the time being, the glare she shot the phone while remaining out of the camera's sight was unmistakable.

"It's all right, Judy," Gideon said, hoping Judy had not noticed his attention shifting elsewhere for a few moments. "I understand – really, I do. And I sure don't wanna get you wrapped up in another caper here with all y'gotta do back in Zootopia."

"You just don't trust the local police," Judy said shortly.

"Not their speed, no."

"I wouldn't either," she admitted. "It's, what, Brerington and a couple other volunteers? Shoot, I don't think Clover ever had to deal with a possible murder case, and he was constable for years."

She stared upward, thoughtful. "And… if it were one of my siblings dead, I'd probably want to find the perp as soon as I could, in case my family was a target."

Gideon nearly cracked a small grin; though they were very different rabbits, both Belle and Judy could sometimes think similarly, he had noticed – not that he would ever tell either of them such a thing, as he valued his present lack of broken bones.

"Look, Gid," Judy spoke, looking into the phone's camera again. "I can't promise I can find time to make it out there, but I can try to help you out from afar as much as I can, maybe make some calls to Brerington or something to expedite things. Anything I can do to help. Same with Nick, if he can think of anything I can't."

"I sure appreciate that, Judy," said Gideon with a smile, giving a thumbs-up off screen to Belle, who appeared at least nonplussed by the news. "Speakin' of… how's Nick, anyway? And… and y'all?"

"Oh! We're… we're doing OK. He's OK. Can't complain." There was the smallest of inflections in Judy's answer whose ramifications Gideon could not pinpoint. "Why? Did Mom and Dad say something?"

"Er, no, they didn't…" Gideon cocked his head a little to the left.

"Good. OK, good. Because we're fine!" The jollity in Judy's voice had returned, and she shot him a toothy smile. "Just fine. Well, on that note, I should probably actually get lunch before I head back to work."

Gideon nodded. "Of course! Don't wanna keep you too long, sorry for intrudin'."

"You're not, Gid! It's always great to hear from you, no matter the circumstances." She placed the phone back in the palm of her paw and stood; the tips of her paws edged slightly into view. "Can you shoot me a text with some details of this whole Bernice mess? I'll let you know what I'm thinking, then. Sound good?"

"Of course. Thank ya so much, Judy, great to talk to ya."

"Same! And tell… uh, tell Belle I'm sorry for her loss."

xXxXxXx

"Wonder what kind of fight they got into."

"The heck are ya talkin' 'bout? Who's 'they'?"

Gideon had stopped his delivery truck at one of downtown Bunnyburrow's three stop lights, waiting for the signal to turn back to green. He glanced over at Belle, who sat in the passenger seat, still faced toward the passenger-side window despite Gideon's question.

"Don't play dumb. I know you heard it too," said the rabbit.

"Ain't playin' dumb, you just happened to say this outta nowhere after sayin' nothin' for the last five minutes." Gideon kept his eyes on the traffic light, trying to mask his annoyance.

She pulled her gaze from the window and nodded at the fox's phone, which sat in the console between them. "Hopps' thing about the fox. You asked how they're doin'. Didn't sound good."

Gideon shrugged as the light turned green, stepping on the gas. "She said they were doin' fine."

"She _said_ that, yeah."

"Yeah, and it ain't my business to think about it any more'n that."

"Same. Who'd've thunk it, though? A rabbit and a fox, incompatible."

"I don't _have_ to be drivin' you 'round town right now, y'know," grumbled the fox, feeling his irritation with the rabbit rising slightly.

"Kidding…" Belle trailed off, her face turned away from him again, though Gideon was not wholly convinced.

He shook his head as he obeyed the immensely slow speed limit through downtown, rumbling his truck over the occasional pothole that had been part of the many debates at recent city council meetings and mayoral election disputes. Gideon had a pair of deliveries in town to complete before the end of the hour, and he had invited Belle along so he could drop her off at her place afterward rather than having her walk the whole way.

It had been a mostly silent car ride to that point, Gideon not sure what to say to Belle and, apparently, likewise. Not that something _needed_ to be said, but Gideon had not quite figured out what would be appropriate for the moment. He was in no way equipped to handle a murder case on his own, nor was Belle – and the two of them together were still woefully underprepared despite the probable inefficiency (or at least sluggish pace) of the diminutive police force in town. And after Judy's thanks-but-no-thanks refusal to come out to Bunnyburrow to help out in the flesh, the fox had suggested they visit Constable Brerington in town to at least offer their services – a suggestion Belle shot down wholesale.

Gideon figured it was best that he get Belle home – her folks would be worrying, he figured, what with one of their daughters dead and another disappearing quite suddenly – and mull it over a bit the rest of the day. It was not that he did not _want_ to help her get to the bottom of whatever had happened to Bernice; he had to admit that the whole thing seemed fishy, particularly Bernice's reemergence in Bunnyburrow dead at a time when she should have been a hundred miles away in the midst of schoolwork.

But what could he do? What could _they_ do? It was best left up to the town, the county, whomever. He had his own life to worry about, anyway; Mayor Cotton's reelection committee had ordered three dozen pies for its election night party, and he was not about to flake out on one of the biggest single orders of his career over something he felt powerless to control.

" _STOP_."

Gideon jerked his truck to a halt and was greeted with the sound of a honking horn as a blue pickup truck edged around him on the road, narrowly avoiding the left rear bumper of the fox's van. He offered a meek, apologetic wave to the angry mammal who shot him an aggravated paw gesture as he pulled his truck to the side of the street and out of the way of oncoming traffic.

"Y'can't just shout at me to stop like that," he scolded Belle, putting the van into park and looking her way, shaking his head. "I could've—"

He stopped there, gaze finding the river that curved toward downtown Bunnyburrow and then away from it, flowing off to some other town or county or wherever. The one that followed alongside County Line Road for a while, as though the river itself had once been the dividing barrier between them instead of some line on a map.

The place where Bernice Thumper, 24, of Bunnyburrow, had been found dead in the early hours of that morning, drowned in its shallow but potent current.

The passenger-side door shut as quickly as it had opened, and Gideon barely had time to register Belle leaping outside and dashing to the edge of the bridge on which his van was now parked.

Sighing, Gideon shut off the van's engine, tossed the keys into his pocket, glanced in his rearview mirror to make sure no vehicles were coming from behind him and stepped out. His paws bristled a bit at the feel of the warm blacktop road he stepped onto, and he dashed quickly to the sidewalk.

Belle did not turn to face him as he approached, not that he had expected her to. Her shirt rippled in the wind as she leaned against the rail that kept passersby and cars alike from going over the side of the bridge, forearms rested against the rail's surface. She stood on slightly raised hind paws to get a look at the water below.

The fox opened his mouth to say something but thought better of it; instead, he joined her at the barrier, laying his elbows on the rail and leaning forward, tail swishing unhurriedly behind him.

Though he did not look at her face, the droplets on the rail beneath her head told him everything he needed to know.

They stood there for a while, cars passing by on the bridge on either side of the road – some heading into Bunnyburrow, others working their way out into the countryside. The sound of the river rippled beneath them; though he had heard his parents and even his grandparents discuss it before, Gideon had never heard the river's dull roar for himself as it passed beneath the bridge. Perhaps he had never been this close.

"I heard they found her out there," Belle's voice, somewhat raspier now, glided above the river's din.

"Y-yeah?" Gideon looked down at Belle from across his snout but did not move his head toward her,

The rabbit extended a paw out above the water and pointed. "See that branch out there? A little ways down. Sticks out in the middle or so."

Gideon squinted his eyes. "Think I do…"

"Her body was stuck on that fallen branch; someone saw her leg or arm or somethin'."

"Y'know, we don't have to talk—"

"Funny thing is, I was thinking about that branch the other day. How it messes up the view," she continued, ignoring Gideon. "I found a postcard in the antique store, had a photo taken pretty much right where we're standin'. Ain't no branch there messin' up the view."

She sniffed and returned her arm back to the rail. "But if it ain't there, Bernice might've floated all the way down to Deerbrooke before we knew anything. Y'know?" She paused. "Guess change is all right sometimes."

"Sure…" Gideon said.

"Postcard still looks better, though."

Gideon chuckled. "Ain't doubtin' that."

"You been in there before? The antique place? Surprisingly an all right way to spend a half hour. I'm becoming my mother sooner'n I thought I would."

They listened to the river for a while. Gideon peered out to the branch where Bernice had been found, and his eyes found the riverbank to its left where the body retrieval had taken place, the reeds that lined the sides of the river flattened or bent by whatever tactic they had used to reach the branch.

Belle's tears on the rail had mostly dried by then, but Gideon, momentarily unsure of what had possessed his right paw, had reached out to place a reassuring paw tentatively on her back, until…

"Hiya, Gideon!"

Gideon nearly jumped at the sudden greeting, and he shot his paw back to his side while turning to face its occupant.

Bobby Catmull was slightly hunched over, weighed down by the black bag he was presently carrying over his shoulder. If anything, it brought the cougar closer to Gideon's level height-wise – closer being the operative word, since he still towered over the fox in his full-grown height.

"How's it shakin'?" Bobby asked, unshouldering the bag onto the ground and straightening to his full height, wiping his forehead with a paw. "Jeez, that's heavy…"

"Bobby, hey," said Gideon with a smile. "It's… goin'. How're y'doin'? Where'd, uh…" he peered around the cougar at the sidewalk from which he came, which ended shortly after the bridge as the road led into the countryside, "where'd ya come from?"

"Had to park out across the bridge." Bobby jerked his head behind him. "Metered parking on Main Street right now and I forgot coins again."

"Think I got a whole $10 worth in my seat cushions if y'ever need some change."

The cougar chuckled. "With all those deliveries, I bet so. What're you doing out here, though? Just taking in the view?"

"Er…"

Belle edged her head around Gideon's body and gave a small wave. "Catmull."

"Ah, Belle. Didn't see ya there."

"I told Gideon he needs to lose some weight."

Bobby began to laugh, but his eyes suddenly widened as he came to a realization of some sort. "Haha, I—oh, _oh_ , shoot, I, uh…" He pawed at the sleeve of his red polo, averting his gaze. "I'm sorry for your, er…"

Belle sighed. "I appreciate it."

"Do you… I mean, do they… know what happened?"

"Pretty sure someone killed her."

Gideon's eyes widened at Belle's bluntness, and Bobby seemed taken aback as well, though somehow less so than the fox might have imagined him to be.

"Wait, so you think it's true…?"

Both Gideon's and Belle's heads snapped forward to face Bobby at once.

" _What_ 's true?" Belle asked forcefully.

"That Bernice was…" started Bobby, scratching the back of his neck. "Uh, y'know…"

"Why? Do you know something?"

"Sharla texted me this morning. You know how she's been working with the Cotton campaign, yeah?"

Gideon nodded, though Belle did not confirm or deny she was aware.

"One of the other volunteers was saying something about it too. Said a rumor's going around. In fact," he indicated the bag he held, which seemed to be packed with some sort of large speaker, "I'm dropping this off at their headquarters right now for the debate tonight and then meeting her for coffee. Getting the 411, so to speak. You know how this town likes to talk."

"Can we come with you?" blurted out Belle before Gideon could ask the same question, albeit less weightily.

"Uh…" Bobby stared into the sky for a few moments. "…sure? I doubt Sharla'd mind. Meet at the Koala in 20 minutes?"

Gideon could not have said no even if he had tried.

 **END**

 **Really excited to have Bobby in this story. He's gonna be a fun one to work with.**

 **Sharla, too! Er, in future chapters, that is.**

 **Stoked to be back on the wagon. Thanks for reading!**


	5. Rivers and Roads

**All right, two weeks later, an update.**

 **Appreciate as always the folks who gave this thing some feedback on FFnet, AO3, Reddit, wherever. Y'all are super kind to have given me the time of day.**

 **As always – there are references here to this fic's predecessor, "The Redemption of Gideon Grey." If you haven't read it, you might still be OK, or you might be slightly confused at certain parts. I dunno. I'm not trying to get ya to read something else of mine, I just don't want ya confused!**

 **Sharla scene incoming, and gooooo.**

 **The Dead Waltz**

 **YFWE**

 **Ch. 5: Rivers and Roads**

For the second time that day, Gideon Grey was in The Icy Koala – and he had to remind himself to get decaf this time.

He had never been the type for more than one cup of something caffeinated in the morning, after all; he found that two cups of coffee or caffeinated tea tended to get him too jittery for the rest of the day, too nervous, unable to focus. The feeling was somewhat akin to what he used to feel years before, at the beginning of his weekly therapist trips, as he struggled to grapple with his misdeeds of his childhood. Anxiety, perhaps. He had never received a formal diagnosis.

What he _did_ know was that he would need his wits about him for the foreseeable future, which was why he was presently drinking a minty green tea rather than the richer drinks of his compatriots.

They were seated at one of the back corner tables, not the one Gideon and Belle Thumper usually met at but instead even further back, in an alcove-like corner that provided for the most privacy anyone was going to get in the café. Normally the spot was taken by a group of elderly rabbits who had been coming there since they were kicked out of their old place up Main Street due to an argument about smoking indoors, which Sheila at The Icy Koala still allowed as long as they were as far away from the front counter as possible.

Thus, the thick smell of smoke permeated Gideon's lungs, and it was a triumph not to have to cough every time he breathed in through his mouth. His grandfather had always preferred the stuff, though, so at least he had a bit of immunity to it.

The same could not be said for Bobby Catmull.

"Jeez, I, uh… I really hope she gets here soon…" the cougar announced, fidgeting uncomfortably with a spoon that that was still sitting in his cream-addled coffee as he had not yet taken a drink. He had, however, downed two cups of water to whet his throat after launching into a heavy coughing fit when their party had first arrived. That he could barely fit on the chair Sheila had pulled up for him – The Koala was generally more of a smaller-mammal joint for sit-ins – only exacerbated matters.

They had arrived to wait for Sharla, who Bobby had met briefly at the Cotton campaign headquarters but still had a few things to finish up before meeting up, telling them to head on over to the Koala without her.

"Don't you, like, play music or somethin'?" Belle asked, rolling her eyes. She had already downed half her still-steaming cup, sized large.

"I DJ," Bobby croaked.

"Ain't you used to this, then? Most bars I've been to practically got a cloud of smoke out front of the entrance."

The cougar shook his head. "I mostly do weddings."

"Ah. Of course."

"How _is_ business lately, by the way, Bobby?" asked Gideon, steering the conversation away from dingy bars.

After a quick cough and another swig of water, Bobby wiped his mouth on his red checkered sleeve and grinned. "It's not bad. I'm averaging a gig a week. Sometimes I get two or three in one weekend. Lots of referrals."

"Nice. I'll have to keep ya in mind whenever I get hitched."

Bobby chuckled, waving a paw. "You say that every time you see me, Gid," he said. "And you never have someone you're remotely close to seeing regularly. Not since… that vixen from Foxgrove?" He stared at the ceiling thoughtfully. "What was her name again?"

"Marissa. And yeah, we didn't last long."

"Why not? She seemed nice."

"Er… she ended up bein' my cousin."

Belle nearly spit out her coffee at this.

"Oh, sure, laugh it up –" Gideon groaned, reaching for a napkin to hand to the rabbit, whose coffee had eventually dribbled slightly out of the corners of her mouth as she silently heaved with laughter. It took a lot of his own might for Bobby to keep the corners of his own muzzle downturned.

"P-please," Belle started, grabbing the napkin from Gideon's paw and dabbing at the table, " _please_ tell me y'all…"

"C'mon, there're like a thousand Thumpers or somethin' 'round here," shot back Gideon defensively, furrowing his brow. "Can't tell me none of yer siblings didn't accidentally –"

Belle nodded emphatically. "My older brother did once. It was funny then, too."

"Mind if I interrupt?"

Sharla carried a bundle of something in her arms that Gideon could not definitively surmise – a jumble of papers, cloth that seemed to belong to an article of clothing, a clipboard, more papers. Her phone rested atop the mess, teetering wildly over the chaos. It was a good thing she had a heavy-duty phone cover.

"Goodness, what do you –" Bobby started, moving to stand and help the sheep.

"I'm fine," she said shortly. "Just clear a space."

Gideon and Belle pulled their coffee cups to the edge of the table to allow Sharla to heave her belongings onto the empty space. She sighed once the weight had been unburdened and twisted a shoulder bag from behind her back. The papers on the table were immediately stuffed inside.

"Cotton tossed me about 50 things as I was trying to leave," she explained, shoving the papers and clipboard, which had a few notes attached to it, into her bag. "And I was already late, so I carried everything down the whole street. Wonder I didn't drop anything."

She came to the clothing and passed it to Bobby. "Oh, and here's this."

"Yo, my Mick Jaguar hoodie!" exclaimed the cougar, snatching the fuzzy red sweatshirt from Sharla's hooves and holding it up above the table. "I forgot I let you borrow this."

"Yeah, it's been on the back of my chair at the office for as long as I can remember. Hi, Gideon, good to see you. And Belle – I…" Sharla paused, wringing her hooves together, a tough of a grimace flashing across her face, "…I'm sure you've already heard it enough, but I'm sorry about everything."

Belle nodded. "Appreciate that."

Sharla took a seat next to Belle while Bobby continued to admire his long-lost tour merchandise. She opened her mouth again, closed it as though she thought better of what she was about to say, and then spoke once more.

"Are you… OK? I mean, is your family…"

"Look," Belle sharply cut her off, "I think I might be in a little bit of the denial stage right now, so while I still am, let's figure out what the hell happened to her while I still feel like it. Didn't you say someone texted you?"

The sheep frowned, her eyes flickering briefly to Gideon, who could only shrug meekly. He had attempted to broach the topic a similar way earlier that day, to no avail.

"…all right," said Sharla, reaching into her bag to retrieve her phone. "So are y'all familiar with Silver O'Hare?"

Gideon stifled a laugh. "Their name's Silver?"

"Oh, that ain't _his_ real name. At least… I don't think so?" Sharla stared at the ceiling thoughtfully. "Nah, I mean, or maybe… whatever, _point is_ , do y'all know who he is?"

"I do," chimed in Bobby, who had put down his prodigal hoodie.

"I wasn't really asking ya, Bobby, but go ahead."

"Yeah, he's Cotton's deputy campaign manager – backup for Hazel when she's not around. Think he runs a dance studio out in Deerbrooke, right?"

Sharla nodded. "Right on all accounts. He only moved 'round here a few years ago, wasn't part of Cotton's election campaign – I was brought on same time he was. Cotton loves him; she'd make him her right-paw rabbit if Hazel wasn't already so good at her job. And her sister-in-law."

"And what's this got to do with my sister?" asked Belle impatiently.

"Right! So tonight's the final debate 'til the election, and Hazel and O'Hare have been practically preparing for this thing like it's their actual jobs for a solid week. Imagine our surprise when he calls out the day of the debate." She shook her head, eyes shut tight. "Says he isn't even coming tonight. Don't know when he'll be back. Just… gone.

"Except," she continued, her gaze finding Belle again, "and this is all hand-me-down info, but I guess when he got a hold of Hazel to tell her why he was going to be gone all day, he mentioned your sister."

"And this was… this mornin'?" Gideon asked, cocking his head a little to the left.

Sharla nodded, leaning back in her chair and grasping her cup of what looked like tea. "Pretty early, too. 7 or 8, maybe.

"What'd he say about Bernice?" demanded Belle, sitting up in her seat.

"I don't know… I really wish I did. And I'm not even supposed to know, I think, so I don't wanna just waltz up to Hazel and ask. Besides, she's got enough on her plate heading up this whole thing tonight. Parsley's campaign head is a piece of work, so the planning's been something else."

"Well, that ain't good enough. If this is the guy that killed my sister, I need to know."

"Whoa, whoa," Sharla raised her hooves in protest, teacup still gripped firmly in one of them. "I didn't say that meant he was a suspect…"

"The hell else should it mean? You don't think that's just a little bit suspicious?"

Gideon glanced from Belle to Sharla. "Well," he started, "Belle, did Bernice know this rabbit at all?"

"I ain't my sister's keeper, I dunno," she snapped back.

"Right, so yer unfamiliar with him."

Shrugging, the rabbit leaned back in her seat again, arms folded across her chest. "Nah," she said. "Think I might've heard the name before, but I don't know nothin' else about him. And if he's workin' for Cotton, I doubt the rest of my family did, either. No offense," she added with a quick look at Sharla.

"Parsley household?" Bobby asked.

"Parents sure are. Pretty sure most of my siblings are gonna vote for him, too."

"What about you?"

"Does it matter?"

"Nah… I guess not," said Bobby.

Sharla cleared her throat. "I'm sure I can answer for you, though."

When no one, Belle included, responded to this, Sharla continued: "Aside from the Thumpers being one of Parsley's biggest campaign donors, of course, I seem to recall a certain mayoral candidate attending all those anti-predator protests at the Fall Harvest Festival last year." She turned to Belle. "How about you, Belle?"

Gideon had watched the whole exchange unfold as though he were viewing it in slow motion. Slowly but surely, he realized where Sharla was heading with her point, which he had to admit had very little to do with the original reason each of them had convened there.

Belle's response seemed to take even longer, even though it was probably a second or two later.

"All right, first off, those weren't _anti-pred_ protests," the rabbit growled, rising from her chair. "You know darn well what –"

" _Can y'all cut it out_?" Gideon interjected with a hushed, but forceful, voice, catching Belle in mid-sentence. The rabbit jerked around to face him, sending a scowl his way, and he thought briefly of recoiling but stood his ground. "I got kicked outta here before, I don't wanna again."

"Yeah, but –"

"And Shar," the fox continued, ignoring the rabbit's protests, "that ain't helpin'. C'mon. That was a while ago. Belle's…" his eyes found her as he said her name, "Belle's changed. That's in the past."

Sharla heaved a sigh, leaning back in her chair. "This isn't the time, you're right. More important things." She turned to the rabbit. "I'm sorry, Belle, that wasn't right of me."

Belle had begun to slowly take her seat again. "Yeah…" she offered. "…uh-huh. Fine."

They sat there for a moment, the four of them, all in forced silence. For her part, Sharla seemed honestly remorseful for her choice of words, though Gideon could understand her emotions getting the best of her. The sheep had been living and breathing the mayoral campaign for Cotton for the past few weeks, and it probably shook her deeply to be near someone whose family supported Parsley as fervently as the Thumpers apparently did.

Gideon still had yet to read up on either candidate. But Cotton had always been nice to him, especially around the Fall Harvest Festival. He trusted Sharla's judgment, too.

"So, what are you trying to do?" Bobby asked finally, turning back to Belle.

"Find who killed my sister, Catmull, we've been over this," said Belle, her voice barely above a whisper.

"Right. But, I mean… you went to Brerington, right?"

"Brerington's gonna be too slow."

"Yeah, but he's better than nothing. Especially with this whole O'Hare connection. Maybe he knows something."

Belle frowned. "I dun—"

"C'mon," Sharla said, rolling her eyes. "You at least gotta _try_ the police."

"Why don't y'all?"

"…you want us to go to Brerington's office?" asked the sheep incredulously.

"Also, who's _us_?" Bobby added.

"I got my own trail I wanna follow. We can cover more ground this way."

Sharla shook her head. "The debate's tonight, Belle, I—"

"Tonight. What you are doing before then?"

"I, uh… I guess nothing for the next few hours…" conceded Sharla.

"Right. How about you, Catmull?"

"Oh, I'm completely free!" Bobby announced brightly. "Nope, ain't doing nothing for… for a few days, actually…" he trailed off.

Belle downed the remnants of her coffee cup and stood. "All right, let's do that, then. Meet up later?"

She was out the door before anyone else at the table – Gideon, Sharla or Bobby – could utter a word.

"Did we…" Sharla started, "did we just get roped into helping with this?"

"For this afternoon, at least," Bobby confirmed, shrugging. "Not that I mind…"

Gideon, meanwhile, remained thoughtful. "She didn't even mention where _we're_ going," he said, assuming internally that Belle wanted him to accompany her. "…where on earth could that be?"

xXxXxXx

Gideon shut his truck off after pulling off to the side of the road and peered through his windshield at the one-story red brick house a half a quarter of a football field ahead of him.

"Car's parked out back," Belle commented, squinting out of the window herself. "So he's home. Or someone is. Right?"

Gideon shrugged. "I guess. He live alone?"

"I think so."

He did not feel great about what they were doing, but he also saw little harm in it – at least, until Brerington and anyone else who might be helping him out at the Bunnyburrow precinct caught up.

And anyway, Belle had said she would walk there if he did not take her, and he was not about to have her going three miles toward Podunk, especially in this heat.

"Pull up a little."

"Are y'sure?" asked the fox, grimacing a little. "We don't wanna scare him."

"Why's he got a reason to be scared?" Belle asked, pulling at the door handle. "It's just us."

"Yeah, two strangers he don't know."

"If he didn't do anything to my sister, then he's got no reason to be scared," she repeated. "And it's fine, I'll just walk without you."

Gideon barely had a chance to protest; Belle leaped down from the passenger side seat and slammed the door, landing in the soft grass that lined the county road that led from Bunnyburrow to Podunk and, after glancing around for cars traveling down either side of the road, began on her way toward Silver O'Hare's home.

The fox sighed, pushed his truck keys into his pocket and followed after her. The late spring sun was potent that day; it warmed the fur on his face as he stepped into the light, and he cursed the fact that he had forgotten the pair of Aviator sunglasses Nick Wilde had sent him for the holidays that year or the hat from Judy Hopps that accompanied it, one for Gideon's favorite Zootopia-based sports team, the Jags. He would actually remember to keep some spares in his delivery van eventually.

Judy. Nick. _Maybe I should shoot her another text_ , he thought as he stepped into the grass on the side of the road.

The brief thought was interrupted when Gideon realized Belle had gotten fairly far out in front of him; she could move quite fast when she wanted to, even though she was not moving at a run or even a jog. It was a sight to behold, really. Here one moment, gone the next.

By the time he caught up, they were halfway up the short driveway that led to O'Hare's modest abode.

"Er… so what's the plan?" Gideon, slightly winded by now, puffed.

"I was thinking the front door might be nice."

"Yer goin' in guns a-blazin', aren'tcha?"

She ignored this, stepping purposefully onto the small sidewalk that led from the driveway to the front door. The rabbit practically ignored the sidewalk, too, hopping over a tidy flower bed onto the porch, where a swing swayed gently in the breeze.

The whole place seemed well-kept and sufficiently decorated, no small feat considering that O'Hare had reportedly moved there not long before. Perhaps the flowers were leftovers from the previous tenant, but even still, Gideon noticed potted plants, homely signs and rustic touches like a wreath dotting the brick exterior. It struck him as a place owned by someone who had no intentions of leaving anytime soon – nor any ill intentions toward one's neighbor. Though the grass out front could probably use a trimming.

He stood back as Belle searched the perimeter of the door for a doorbell. When that search proved fruitless, she rapped a few times on the surface of the tan front door, the knocks not forceful but loud enough to get anyone's attention inside.

"Hello?" she called, her voice wavering in a way Gideon had not heard it immediately before then, not since the baseball field. "Silver O'Hare? You home?"

There was no answer, and had Gideon not been standing where he was, he would have never noticed the slightest of movement in the large bay window to the right of the door. At first he thought it could have been the reflection of the tree out front, whose branches would move every so often in the wind, but he realized that those limbs were much higher, and what he had seen through the window was sufficiently lower.

Still, no one answered the front door, even after a few more of Belle's knocks, which eventually turned to pounds.

She sighed, shaking her head while still faced away from Gideon. "D'you think we should try out back…?" she asked. "Maybe there's a backdoor."

Gideon did not answer at first; his eyes were still squinted as he searched for more movement inside. He swore he had seen something just paces from the window, though it was hard to tell with the glare of the outdoors and the afternoon sun impacting the glass.

"What're you lookin'—" started Belle, who had turned around to see Gideon's concentration.

" _I don't know what you're doing here, fox, but I got a taser and I_ won't _hesitate to use it_."

The fox's heart skipped a beat at the voice, which had come from the left of them. Belle jumped a little, too, but she was at Gideon's side almost immediately as the pair faced the direction of the voice.

The white rabbit in front of them wore a disheveled disposition – a black sleeveless shirt seemingly pulled haphazardly over his fur moments before so that it was barely on straight, part of the left side of his waist exposed. A fresh-seeming stain of some sort caked the right leg of his tight-fitting sweatpants, into which one of his paws was tucked into a pocket that seemed to hold some sort of small object – perhaps the aforementioned taser he claimed to possess.

His eyes – orange eyes, burnt orange, a hue fiery like the sun – were wide, crazed – but most of all, they were scared. Scared of the unfamiliar fox in front of him.

Except then those eyes found Belle, and their piercing gaze softened almost instantaneously.

"No…" he sputtered, "n-no… it can't be…"

He took a step forward, one paw still in his pocket, ears splayed down his back. "B-Bernice…?" he spoke softly, his other paw reaching tentatively toward the rabbit before him. "They said… they told me you…"

Gideon looked down at Belle, whose lips quivered as the rabbit – was it O'Hare? It had to be O'Hare, right? – reached out to her, calling her by her sister's name. It was then that he realized how alike Belle and Bernice appeared – how similar they had always looked to each other, even back in school, when Gideon's bullying tendencies did not possess an ounce of disparity between who he might torment that day. Had he not spent more time with Belle recently, perhaps he still would not have known for sure.

"Oh, Bernice…" the white rabbit whispered, now just a few paces from Belle and Gideon. "I thought…"

What happened next occurred in the blink of an eye: one moment, there was the rabbit, reaching out to Belle, who stood nearly frozen, fur bristling every time she heard her sister's name.

The next, he was on the ground, and Belle had screamed, jumping a few steps back. Gideon, almost by instinct, did so too, and as he did so, noticed the dart embedded into the rabbit's side –

Normally his wits would not have allowed him to have thought on the fly as much as he would that next moment; the fox turned to his left, catching just in time out of the corner of his eye the black four-seater car, out of which a gun of some sort was pointed from its left rear window.

" _GET DOWN!_ " he exclaimed, pulling Belle down with him as he ducked to the ground, into the flower bed behind the white rabbit's still body. He heard another dart whip through the air above them, impacting with a thud against the brick behind them.

He was not sure if he had hurt Belle on the way down; his right arm was over her head, which was buried into the mulch-filled flower bed. He felt her breathing, her back heaving rapidly against the rest of his weight. But he dared not move, even if they were probably still out in the open; he was not sure how clean a shot the car would have, if they were perhaps shielded by the white rabbit's body – and even then, at least Belle might be safe.

Instead, he heard the sound of squealing tires, and the fox poked his head up, craning his neck as the black car sped away, passing by his delivery van and off toward Bunnyburrow.

 **END**

 **LET'S GET THIS THING A-GOIN', EH?**

 **So, if you haven't figured it out yet, Sharla and Bobby are gonna heavily factor into this one – and since some folks have asked elsewhere, let me assuage any fears that Judy and Nick will be completely absent. Won't go any further, but we ain't gonna have a non-WildeHopps affair here, no sirree.**

 **Next chapter: a mayoral debate?! A mayoral debate. Details on this Parsley guy and such.**

 **Appreciate ya reading. Only took me two weeks to toss this one out. Hoping for a quicker turnaround next time, but at least it's less than the time between chapters three and four…? Eh?**

 **BYE THX**


	6. River Takes the Town

**Sorry this one took a month. Had a lot to blast through these last few weeks.**

 **But, hey, chapter six! And chapter seven ain't too far around the bend. We're doin' it!**

 **Hope y'all enjoy, and hope I didn't lose ya after that cliffhanger last chapter.**

 **The Dead Waltz**

 **YFWE**

 **Ch. 6: River Takes the Town**

The sun was in his eyes, so Gideon Grey lost sight of the ambulance pulling into the distance before it had realistically disappeared from view. He shaded his eyes against the sun with a paw to little avail, again cursing his lack of sunglasses.

Sighing, he turned back to his delivery van, which still sat at the side of the road, shining in the late afternoon sunlight like a beacon. He squinted at the windshield but could not see the truck's occupant through it, though he knew she was there, probably right where he left her, in the passenger seat.

Belle Thumper barely registered Gideon when he wrenched open the driver's side door and climbed inside. He shut the door delicately and heaved another great sigh, melting into the van's leathery seats while fishing its keys from his pocket.

"So," he said after what felt like a minute, though it could have been even longer, "what now?"

He felt fortunate to not have seen someone die that day. Whatever dart Silver O'Hare had been hit with had neither killed him nor appeared to seriously injure him, aside from the fact that he remained unconscious once paramedics from General and Danny Brerington had arrived. Even once he was loaded into the now-departing ambulance and was taken away for further observation, the rabbit was immobile, but his eyes remained open, glassy, as though in a comatose, frozen state.

It was that last part that haunted Gideon. Brerington had surmised that whatever he had been shot with did not appear to be one's average tranquilizer dart that knocked out the mammal on the receiving end for a few minutes or hours, depending on the dosage, but it was also unlike anything the constable had ever seen. The paramedics seemed hopeful that they could snap him out of it, and when they had, Brerington could question him further.

But until then, there persisted many questions, none of which Gideon felt he had the answer to. Despite Bernice Thumper dying a very real death the night before, the case surrounding her demise seemed somehow small in scope, quiet, a small-town homicide or even suicide (though he doubted the likelihood of the latter) with little bearing on the world around it.

And maybe that was still the case. Perhaps this only came down to Bernice and Silver… and whoever was in that car….

The fox heard Belle inhale deeply and turned to the rabbit, hoping maybe she was about to say something – anything. Instead, she sighed herself, closing her eyes and leaning her head against the seat back.

"Is it… is it what I think it's about?" Gideon asked softly.

Belle nodded and then shook her head. "I can't believe… that stupid cop…"

"Belle," said Gideon, adopting the gentlest tone he could muster, "c'mon, y'know Brerington's just doin' his job..."

Her eyes shot open, and their fierceness startled the fox as they turned toward him. He cowered just a little underneath their weight.

"Don't tell me you're on his side," she glowered.

"No! I mean – gosh darnit, Belle, there ain't sides –"

"There's no reason – none at all – for my family to go after this guy like that. None of 'em even have tranqs or guns, 'specially not like this!"

Gideon nodded. "Right, right—"

"And," she continued, her voice rising, "even if they did, which they don't, why in the hell are they gonna shoot at you 'n' me, too? My own kin don't have nothing against me."

"Right, but they were shootin' more at me than you, though."

"Still!"

"Naw," Gideon shook his head solemnly, sliding the keys into the ignition. "I believe ya, Belle, trust me. I can't get my head around that theory either."

"Which is why I don't trust the cops 'round here and never have."

Gideon had to admit that he saw where she was coming from to some extent. Danny Brerington's first notion to bring up after gleaning whatever information he could from Gideon and Belle had been that perhaps Belle's family had put some sort of hit on O'Hare, which caused him to go into hiding. It was an off-the-cuff remark, granted; Gideon did not feel that the constable actually _believed_ what he was surmising, only to toss out potential motives. It was somewhat of an inexperienced move, nonetheless, and he could understand Belle's subsequent anger at the accusation.

Then again, what if there was some truth to it? Before O'Hare had seen Belle, the rabbit had threatened Gideon, even though the fox was almost certain the pair had exchanged niceties at some point since his move to Bunnyburrow. Had O'Hare indeed been scared that someone had it out for him? And had he thought that Gideon was the harbinger of whatever wrath that mammal wanted to dole out?

The fox had slowly begun to realize amid the day's activities that he actually still knew Belle Thumper very little, and less so her entire family – Bernice included. He could not make the connection between O'Hare and Bernice, or between O'Hare and Belle, if there was one. Brerington might know something he did not, something about the politics of the town and about the relationship between O'Hare and the Thumpers. Maybe there was something Belle was not telling him.

But it was not his fight, either way. It was Belle's. And he had a good feeling that he knew what needed to happen next.

"C'mon," he said, his van's engine starting up. "I'm takin' ya home."

xXxXxXx

Just like the last time Gideon had visited the Thumper home (and the time before that, and possibly even before that, too), at least one rabbit was perched on the Thumpers' front porch – and like usual, it was Benny Thumper doing the perching.

But Belle's father normally sat with a fair amount of indifference in his bones and posture, like he was content to be there but did not need to be, simply at some place at whatever time. Maybe Beatrice, his wife of however-many years (certainly as long as Gideon could remember), might join him on occasion, and other times perhaps some of the Thumpers' older children might squat on the porch with the same apathy of their parents.

Gideon recognized Benny immediately as the porch's only denizen when he pulled into the farmstead's driveway, rumbling his truck across its pieces of gravel of varying sizes. That much was commonplace; however, the closer he came to the end of the driveway and the subsequent corner of the farmhouse, it occurred to him that the patriarch of the rabbit family was more rigid than usual, staring straight ahead at the incoming truck. Gideon watched as he got up to stand beside the porch swing on which he had been seated, though he did not move toward them.

He chalked the anomaly up to the fact that one of the rabbit's daughters had been found dead that morning.

Belle, meanwhile, had another take on the situation. "Ugh," she grunted, rolling her eyes and laying her head against the back of the passenger seat. "He's mad."

"Yeah?" asked Gideon as he braked his truck to a stop.

"Don't think he likes that I left this morning." She paused. "Or the fact that I'm comin' back with you."

Gideon now mildly regretted his decision to bring Belle home.

"Sorry," he muttered, "y'know I'd like to help, but…"

"It's fine," she cut him off. "It's my fight, not yours. Sorry to drag you into this."

The fox and the rabbit walked up the oft-trodden grassy path to the front door of Belle's home together, Gideon grimacing as he felt Benny Thumper's stare affixed to him but trying his hardest to mask his anxiety.

He stood slightly behind the proceedings while Belle ascended the single step up that led to the porch. By then, Benny had walked to the front door as well, though he did not block his daughter's entrance.

"Pa," Belle said shortly, locking gazes with her father.

"Of all days to run off…" Benny started, his terseness evident both vocally and by the slight frown he wore on his face.

"Forgive me if I didn't want to hang around the pity party all day," muttered Belle.

"The hell did you just say?"

"Your hearing ain't that bad yet."

Benny seemed to want to raise his voice even louder than it had been at last check, inhaling deeply and raising a paw – but he seemed to think better of it when his gaze fell on Gideon, who stood just off the porch, wishing he were anywhere else in that moment.

"You…" the rabbit continued, eyes lingering on the fox a few more moments before returning to Belle, "you… miss, I don't care if yer grown, you still live here, and you owe me –"

"What? Respect?" Belle appeared undeterred. "Sure. While you're searchin' for that, I'll go out in a bit and figure out who killed my sister – somethin' none of y'all seem to be too worried about."

She was back inside and had forcefully slammed the screen door behind her before her father could get in another word to her.

At first, it seemed as though the older rabbit might have followed his daughter inside, or at least might have shouted a rebuttal through the open windows of his home. He sighed instead, shaking his head as he took off his John Deer hat and wiped his brow, shaking his head twice and grumbling something under his breath Gideon could not discern.

The rabbit's dark brown eyes found Gideon again a second or two later, and the fox recognized the weighty glare they sported, the one he had received from Benny for as long as he could recall, even in his more recent visits: I still don't trust you, fox, and don't think that's gonna change anytime soon.

Still, his words to Gideon were curt, if not appreciative.

"Thanks for bringin' 'er back," he said, leaning against the side of the house and crossing his arms across his chest. "Beatrice's been worried."

"R-right, yeah. Sure," Gideon said. "It's no problem."

"Frankly, I don't know if Bea's really registered the whole thing, not like I have," the rabbit continued, placing his hat back atop his head and smooth his long gray ears down his back. "Just wants all the kids here now in case… well, maybe if there's some news, or if whatever happened to Bernice finds its way out here…"

Gideon nodded, squinting a bit as the sun emerged from behind the cloud. He shaded his eyes with a paw.

"Maybe it's better if ya lay low for a few days, sir, if ya don't mind me sayin'…"

Benny sniffed and shook his head. "Naw," he said. "Reckon we should be at the debate tonight. 'Least, I will."

"All right. Well… it ain't much of my business," said the fox, searching for his truck keys in his pocket and closing his paw around them once located, "but I hope y'all stay careful. Somethin' happened earlier today, and –"

"At the O'Hare place?"

Gideon blinked. "Y-yeah, um, how –"

"Brerington stopped by here not long before y'all showed. Real shame what happened to him."

"Oh, right. Right, yeah. It was."

There was a small pause between the pair before Benny spoke again: "Reminds me, actually, since yer in the business of givin' advice this afternoon, I got some of my own."

Shrugging, the fox cocked his head. "Uh, yeah…?"

"Yeah. I wouldn't get too involved in this whole thing if I was you. Try to keep yer nose clean, regardless of what my daughter might try to drag ya into now that yer _friends_ or somethin'." He put extra emphasis on the word 'friend,' and Gideon could not decide if he liked the sound of it. "This town's goin' a little cross-eyed these days, and I wouldn't want George and Clara to get the same call Bea and I did this mornin'."

Gideon nodded, lowering his shading paw from his forehead. "I understand, Mr. Thumper."

"Oh, and one other thing." Gideon watched Benny Thumper shoot him the first smile he had ever seen him muster, a wide, toothy grin. "Don't forget to vote Parsley next week."

xXxXxXx

"I can't even believe they're still having the whole thing," Sharla said, breaking a silence that had fallen under the shade of the blue magnolia tree under which she sat with Gideon and Bobby. "Can you?"

Sharla's question had jolted Gideon out of a particularly lengthy daydream, a trance that might have persisted for a few minutes longer had no one spoken up.

"Eh… wha?"

"The debate." Sharla nodded toward the stage at the edge of Riverside Park, where various mammals were situated either on or around stage with cords, cables, microphones and the like in the waning moments of setup for the mayoral debate between Bunnyburrow Mayor Patricia Cotton and her challenger, Gabriel Parsley. "I mean, maybe it's weird coming from me, someone who works for Cotton –"

"You're right, it is," chimed in Bobby in between sips of his soda.

"—but I dunno, I figured the town would wanna shut the whole thing down what with the O'Hare shooting plus the Bernice Thumper thing. Especially since O'Hare worked for the Cotton campaign, too."

Gideon sat up slightly in the lawn chair he had procured from the back of his truck, glancing over at Sharla and Bobby, the former lounging in one of his extras, the latter reclining on the ground beneath the tree. "Well, what did Brerington have to say when y'all visited? While Belle 'n' I were out at O'Hare's."

Shaking her head, Sharla closed her eyes and grimaced. "Whole lot of nothin'," she said. "I mean, he seemed interested in the connection, had his buddy Jake what's-his-name, his friend who's helpin' out the department here and there, on his way out to check to see if O'Hare was home. But we were outta there before he apparently headed over to check up on you and Belle."

"Maybe he thinks it's an isolated incident," Bobby said, crossing one leg over the other and leaning back against the trunk of the tree under which they sat. "Figures it's no coincidence O'Hare went into hiding right after Bernice was found dead, especially with what we told him this afternoon. Bet he's got someone from county there keeping an eye on him for when whatever was in that dart wears off."

"Still… even if that were true, it doesn't explain who did the shootin' of that dart," grumbled Gideon, staring off into the distance again.

Sharla snorted. "I think Brerington's already on to something there."

Gideon turned toward the sheep. "You mean… his Thumper theory?"

"If a paw of a Thumper didn't pull that trigger, I'll bet you one of 'em's handin' over some cash to whoever did it."

"Well, look," said Bobby. "How many Thumpers did you see when you dropped Belle off?"

The fox glanced up at the tree branches above him as he thought through his answer. "Just one," he admitted. "Benny. Think there was a couple cars there, though."

"Sure, the rest might've been inside. But you said Benny was… weird, right?"

Weird was somewhat of an understatement. Gideon had been unable to shake the strangeness of his encounter with Benny Thumper ever since it had happened, from the truck ride back into town to that moment, reclining outdoors while waiting for the debate.

It had already struck him as odd how genial Benny seemed toward him – well, relatively speaking – but his later comments upped the ante. Gideon had just been trying to help, after all; why would the Thumpers be unwilling to allow him to look into the case of how Bernice had died? Did they, unlike Belle, simply trust Danny Brerington's judgment and process? Did they already know who had done it?

Let alone how calm Benny had appeared despite the loss of his daughter. Spat with Belle notwithstanding, he did not seem like a rabbit who had lost a child, even if Bernice was far from his only daughter. Then again, Belle had said he was usually the stoic one of the family, more serious, far more collected. And it was not like Belle herself was much of a blathering mess, anyway.

Across the field, a pair of goats performing a sound check rose above the din of conversation that blanketed the park. Sharla, Gideon and Bobby were farther back than most, Sharla choosing the spot beneath the magnolia tree since, she argued, it kept her from being noticed by any of her fellow volunteers from Cotton's re-election campaign ("I'm just… burnt out, I dunno," she had said, practically sighing the words).

"I guess the good thing," Sharla said, cracking open another can of soda, "is that we don't have to worry about the whole Bernice thing anymore. It's in Brerington's hands now."

"Yeah," Gideon muttered, resting his paws on his knees. "Guess so."

"And anyway," Bobby said, "I'm guessing they figured since they caught O'Hare, there isn't any danger now. Though," he added, glancing around, "I feel like I saw a few county cops earlier, maybe a few from Foxgrove, too. So they beefed up security a little bit."

" _Ladies and gentlemammals!"_

The declaration from the stage was accompanied by the loud, squelching shriek of microphone feedback, at which several mammals shot their paws and hooves to their ears and cowered from the sound – though, one could argue, it had achieved its desired effect, as everyone's attention was now turned to the stage.

After a few moments of rustling microphones as the tech crew worked to fix the feedback, Larry Goatsby, apparently the emcee for the evening, re-emerged at the front of the stage.

"I wanna thank y'all for comin' out tonight and hearin' what these two candidates have to say," the goat, a prominent fixture in Bunnyburrow as the head of its weekend farmer's market, greeted. "We know y'all have a lot of questions, what with election day comin' up and all, and we're gonna get to ya as quick as we can."

"Ah, so they _are_ going with questions from the audience after all," Sharla groaned, shaking her head.

"Not your cup of tea, Shar?" Bobby asked, cocking his head.

"It's just not gonna be much of a debate, that's all," said the sheep with a shrug. "More like a town hall now. I told 'em they should pick one, but I'm not high up enough to make those decisions."

"-please welcome her challenger, City Councilmammal Gabriel Parsley!"

Gideon realized they had completely missed Mayor Cotton's entrance onto the stage, though he felt like he could recall the impassioned applause that accompanied her arrival. Meanwhile, Parsley now followed, and the din from the crowd seemed less enthusiastic in terms of overall noise, but those who did cheer for the cream-colored rabbit who now stood behind a podium on the right side of the stage appeared just as fervent, if not more, in their support of their chosen candidate.

"Booooooo," hissed Bobby at a fairly reasonable volume, enough that he seemed certain no one outside of their trio under the tree would hear him.

"Really sticking yer neck out there, aren't ya, Bobby?" pointed out Gideon with a chuckle.

Bobby smiled toothily. "It's actually years of hearing loss from all these shows, man. I don't know how loud I'm being."

"Oh, cool it, Bobby, your hearing's fine – you wear headphones the whole time," Sharla said, rolling her eyes.

"What?" asked Bobby.

"I said, you wear headph—"

"I'm sorry, _what_?"

Groaning, Sharla scooted her chair closer to Gideon. "Ugh, you're impossible," she spat, shaking her head. "Gid, I'm glad you shot past this phase somehow."

"Honey, my terrible jokes aren't a phase, I hate to break it to ya."

"He's got a point," Gideon said, chuckling. "You've been makin' that face 'round Bobby since middle school at least."

"What face?"

Bobby sat up and screwed up his muzzle into a scowl. "The disappointed-mother face, of course," he said through his contorted muzzle.

"I _don't_ make that face –"

"You do. My mom makes it too."

"Oh, mutton chops," groaned Sharla. "Gid," she said, turning to the fox, "promise me you'll never end up like him."

"I dunno, Shar," replied Gideon, "I _have_ been thinkin' of sellin' the bakery business and goin' into cover bands that only play weddings."

" _I call lead guitarist_." Bobby's paw shot straight up.

Sharla shook her head and pointed at the stage. "Shh," she shushed the fox and cougar, "it's startin'."

And indeed it was. Formalities out of the way, Goatsby seemed to be proceeding with the initial rules for the debate (slash town hall, in Sharla's opinion) while Cotton and Parsley waited patiently behind their makeshift podiums, makeshift because Gideon had seen a couple folks from City Hall putting them together with some spare wood that morning as he made his early-morning deliveries.

"Remember," Goatsby explained, stepping out onto the edge of the stage, "you fine folks have two strong choices this Tuesday –"

" _No, they don't._ "

"I, uh… anyway, _two_ choices…"

" _NO, THEY DON'T_."

Even from afar, Gideon could recognize both the contempt on Goatsby's face and the voice that was coming through what sounded like a bullhorn.

"Will someone please take the bullhorn away from Colt Grey, wherever he is? Colt, we've been over this…"

" _I WILL NOT BE SILENCED._ "

"Over by the parks and rec department's tent," pointed out Parsley, who spoke sweetly into his mic in his light drawl.

" _Citizens of Bunnyburrow, you have more than two choices this Tuesday! They won't let me on stage, so check out my blog – www. –HEY, GET OFF, NO, I BOUGHT THAT, IT'S MINE—"_

Gideon sighed amid the laughter that had broken out over the assembled crowd. "My brother, ladies and gents."

"Are you even voting for him?" asked Bobby, who had stood to get a better view of the proceedings, craning his neck to try to find Colt Grey among the crowd.

"I told him I'd think about it."

"Yeah, but _are you_?"

"I, uh… shoot, please don't make me answer that."

Once the brief hullabaloo had died down, Goatsby resumed with his opening remarks, followed by those from the candidates.

Gideon had always liked Mayor Cotton, who spoke first. She had, after all, been among the first to take a chance on Gideon with his pie business, allowing him that past fall to sell his confections at the Bunnyburrow Fall Harvest Festival alongside the usual vendors, all of whom were prey animals, rather than being relegated to a less-prime area where the new predators had been situated.

Despite what his brother Colt claimed was a mishandling of the subsequent Constable Clover business on her part, Gideon generally found that he did not fully agree with Colt's assessment, even if Cotton had made some mistakes here and there. The rabbit was a good-hearted individual, all things considered, and her time as mayor had been a mostly positive experience for predators and prey alike in Bunnyburrow, minus the Fall Harvest Festival mishap.

And to that end, that was much of Cotton's approach in her opening statement. "Bunnyburrow is more inclusive, more welcoming than ever," she said, unfastening the microphone from her podium and stepping out to the edge of the stage while addressing the crowd. "My opponent will not keep things this way, and it would trouble me to see this great town take a step back rather than one forward."

The strangest thing to Gideon was that if Gabriel Parsley disagreed with Cotton's assessment, he certainly did not outwardly say so. In fact, much of his speech focused little on Cotton at all, only referring to her when noting that Bunnyburrow was ready for change, and that it started with him, not the incumbent.

"Since joining our city council to which you so generously elected me," the rabbit orated, opting nonetheless to remain behind his podium rather than out on the middle of the stage, "I have seen what Bunnyburrow can be. I've talked with many of you about it, I've heard your complaints. My opponent would like to tell you that things are well, and maybe they are."

After stealing a quick glance toward Cotton, he continued: "But does that mean we should stay stagnant? Not invest in our schools? Our infrastructure? Most of all, our _people_?

"Folks." Parsley was not one for paw gestures most of the time, generally keeping them placed neatly on the edge of the podium, but he splayed his arms outward after this word. "Let me tell you something that my opponent neglected to mention. Today, one of our own was found dead in that stream right over yonder." He pointed at the river that ran alongside Riverside Park, the one where Bernice Thumper had been found a short distance away. "I cannot recall a time in our recent history when a mammal – any mammal, especially one of our own – died in our community in such a way. All this, of course, under our current mayor's watch."

"Someone restrain me," Sharla snarled.

"Wha-?" Bobby asked, dumbfounded.

"Bobby, hold me back or I'm gonna charge the dang stage."

Gideon laid a paw on Sharla's arm, pressing it lightly against her orange flannel sleeve. "Relax," he said softly, though his eyes did not leave the stage, "we know. It ain't Cotton's fault, and this town ain't gonna let him sway them otherwise."

"I have maintained close contact with our local law enforcement," continued Parsley, his light drawl not leaving its tempered, modest volume despite a rising din from the crowd before him, "and from what I have surmised, Bernice Thumper was murdered. And not just one day after her father, Benjamin Thumper, provided me with a rather sizable donation that will not only keep this campaign going, but also help fund many of the wonderful projects I plan to bring to the great mammals of Bunnyburrow as mayor."

"Now, hold on right there –" Cotton shouted into her microphone.

"Patricia, I believe this is _my_ time now; I certainly didn't interrupt you," Parsley said, his diffident speaking voice remaining level.

"You know darn well what you're doing, Gabe."

"Think that's enough," Goatsby cut across the conversation, though Gideon could make out the slightest of wavers, of uneasiness, in his voice as he did so. "Councilmammal Parsley, c'mon, please don't bring that into this."

"Mr. Goatsby, you and the mayor misunderstand," said Parsley with a meager shrug. "Had you let me finish, I would have told you that this campaign, this deed I do –" he was now addressing the crowd again, "is in Bernice's honor, may her soul rest easy. I know it's what she would have wanted; her parents, Benjamin and Beatrice, told me so."

He waved at someone near the front of the crowd, who Gideon surmised must have been Benny Thumper, perhaps other members of the Thumper family.

"With their help," the rabbit concluded, "and with yours, my fellow townsfolk, we will make sure this town is safe for all creatures big and small. I will not rest until no bunny is harmed again. You have my word."

" _Bunny_. There he is," growled Sharla.

"You noticed that too, huh?" Gideon asked, his paw still atop the sheep's arm, which bristled under his touch as she spoke.

Sharla looked over at the fox, her blue eyes heavy with disdain. "Listen," she spat, "about everything you hear outta that rabbit's mouth this next hour is gonna be about rabbits and rabbits only, no matter what he tries to argue. Don't you let him fill your head with anything otherwise."

"In that case," the fox grumbled, rolling his eyes. "I gotta take a leak. And a break from all this. See y'all in a bit."

"Already?" Bobby asked, his voice dripping with sarcasm. "But the fun's just started, Gid."

"Yeah, well, gotta pace myself."

There were two public restrooms on the grounds of Riverside Park, one closer to the stage where Cotton and Parsley presently debated, the other a little closer to where he was seated, across a jogging path and situated on the far end of the park. Gideon chose the latter; he figured it would provide more privacy than the one near more people, let alone its proximity.

He opted for a stall at the far end of the half-lit, cavernous men's room, the last of eight or nine stalls that ran along the wall following a row of sinks. There was no one else inside, and after the day's events to that point, Gideon was happy to have some peace and quiet for a change, opting for a stall rather than the much-quicker urinal option.

Except almost as soon as he sat down, he was no longer alone, hearing the entrance swing open.

"—parked it out by the river. I dunno if they saw me."

"And where is he?"

"O'Hare? I dunno, General, I think."

A dozen thoughts at least raced through Gideon's head. It was clear whoever was out there had either been in the car that had shot O'Hare or knew the folks who had, and they also did not seem to realize Gideon was in the bathroom with them – possibly a byproduct of the large row of stalls between him and the other mammals, plus the dim lighting inside.

He could not just walk out and interrogate them; they had darted a rabbit earlier, and he was certain they had tried to shoot him, too, maybe even Belle. And if he just walked out and went about his business as though he had not heard them? The fox considered that, but if one or both of them had been in the car, perhaps they would recognize him.

Gideon grimaced as he glanced around for an angle that might allow him to see the mammals speaking without being noticed, his grimace turning into a silent groan when he realized his best option. Somewhat reluctantly, he carefully brought himself to the grimy tiled floor of the bathroom stall, slowly lowering his head to the ground and ignoring the multitude of smells that filled his nose.

"So what's the plan?" he heard one speak again. "Do we move the car? I mean… at least he's out of our fur now, but if Brerington comes lookin' during his investigation…"

Gideon had finally lowered himself far enough to the ground that he could make out something – anything – of the pair in the bathroom with him.

It was not much, but he did notice paws – rabbit paws.

"Yeah," said the other rabbit, making a move toward the door in the process. "Ev'ryone's out at the debate right now; we can avoid –"

The fox listened and watched as the voices faded into the evening, their hind paws, which both stuck out of blue jean pant legs with varying amounts of holes and wear and tear, disappearing out the door as it swung behind them.

Knowing he had little time to lose, Gideon got back to his feet and pushed open the stall door, walking briskly toward the entrance. He had a mind to follow them – or at least to get a look at their faces, maybe the backs of their heads, something that he might remember. It was clear to him that these rabbits were somehow involved with the attack on O'Hare, and if so, perhaps they knew something about Bernice, too.

But just as he reached the front door, mind reminding him to slow his pace so he did not burst outside only to find the two rabbits still standing right by the door (there was a drinking fountain there, he recalled), the door to the maintenance closet beside the entrance opened as well, and Gideon could not help but run into the figure that had emerged from it.

" _Oof_!" he grunted, slipping on the tiles and sliding onto the dirty floor, wondering how many more times he was going to have his face inches from the floor of a public bathroom that day. Whomever had exited the closet had bumped into him fairly soundly, and the impact send the other figure sprawling into the clammy gray wall, emitting a beleaguered sound of its own as arms met concrete.

Slightly dazed, Gideon only got a few moments to stare at what had come from the closet, which clearly had not expected him to be on the other side of the door either. The more he looked, the quicker his confusion rose.

It was a mammal about his size, maybe a little taller. A tan trenchcoat covered it from head to paw – well, nearly its entire paws, though Gideon could see tips of claws poking out at the bottom of the coat. The hat it wore, wide-brimmed and with a formidable circumference, was worn in a way that shrouded the face in shadow, even from Gideon's vantage point on the ground.

He heard the trenchcoated figure gasp – as though it did not expect to have been seen – and bolted out of the entrance in one swift motion.

Gideon tried his best to rise from the ground quickly enough to follow, but he stumbled back to his feet, wobbling from where his leg had impacted a little heavier against the tile than he would have liked.

He had all but forgotten about the two rabbits he had meant to follow when he eventually exited the bathroom – not that it mattered all too much, as they were no longer visible.

He did, however, catch a glimpse of the fleeing mammal in the trenchcoat, and although brief, he spotted the tail of what seemed to be a red fox poke out of the back of the coat before the mammal shoved it back inside and kept running into the darkness.

 **END**


	7. In Rolling Waves

**This took hella long! I wanted to take a small break at the halfway point, but that turned into a helluva bit of downtime while ALL THE THINGS happened in life throughout July and August. Summer ain't always a breeze once you get older, I'll tell ya that.**

 **But lo and behold, chapter seven. If you're still following along, thank you so much for doing so. Hope this was worth the month-and-a-half wait!**

 **The Dead Waltz**

 **Ch. 7: In Rolling Waves**

It had not been since Nick Wilde and Judy Hopps' visit the previous year that Gideon Grey's home had seen so many visitors at one time who were not family members. And even his family rarely entered, usually for quick fixer-upper projects or to ask a quick question if they happened to be out and about the Grey homestead anyway. Usually, Gideon was more likely to visit his parents' home on the same property some yards away rather than welcome them into his admittedly smaller abode. More room, especially for the holidays.

In fact, now that he thought about it, the sheep and cougar that now joined him inside his house had never been there separate from each other, let alone at the same time. Maybe Sharla had come over once to pick up a pie order, but Bobby Catmull certainly had not. Despite having a pawful of friends in town, Gideon rarely entertained much. Not that he was ashamed by his residence; it was shabby, sure, but average as far as most of the places in and around the Tri-Burrows were. Having guests just had never come up.

But his place simply happened to be the closest to downtown Bunnyburrow of the three of them – and anyway, Gideon's home had one other important amenity.

"Yer tellin' me that neither of y'all have a couch?" Gideon asked, incredulous, glancing back and forth at Bobby and Sharla.

The latter shied away a bit from the question, averting her gaze as though it was something of which to be ashamed. "I just moved into the new place, and… I dunno, I haven't really found one I like yet. Not a lot of folks coming over, anyway, not yet. I got two armchairs, y'know."

"Right. Bobby, what's yer excuse? Haven't you been livin' in the same complex for a few years?" asked Gideon, steering the conversation away from Sharla's new home, which he had just remembered she had moved into about a month prior, a one-story farmhouse her grandparents had once owned.

"I got a couch, Gid, I told ya," said Bobby, who was now splayed across Gideon's, the cougar's girth compared to everyone else inside meaning his hind paws still dangled over the other side. He ignored Sharla's leer as she stood nearby without a place to sit.

"All right, so…"

"It's one of those loveseats," Bobby continued. "Y'know, kinda half a couch, not really a chair. Picked up a good one secondpaw from a cat who got his from ITREEA. You ever been there? It's like a maze. And the couples fighting—"

Gideon groaned. "Yeah, but a big cat-sized loveseat's prob'ly the size of a fox's couch."

Sitting up, the cougar glanced around at the couch he was sitting on, patting the cushion beside him. "Oh," he said shortly. "Oh, right, yeah, y'know, that's a good point."

"Did ITREEA have sectional couches? I want one of those when I move into my own place."

Gideon whipped around to face his brother, Colt, who had entered with them. He stood by the sink, casually refilling the glass of water he was consuming every minute or so with one paw, cradling his since-returned bullhorn in the other.

"Colt, what on earth do ya need one of them for?"

"I dunno. I just think they're kinda funny. Like, who needs that? Besides me."

"Right. And how're ya gonna fit it in the front door?"

"Figured you'd help me. I helped you move in your couch, after all."

The scene was decidedly more lighthearted than it had been about an hour prior – or perhaps, Gideon thought, it was simply a byproduct of wanting to stay the inevitable as long as possible, putting off the discussion they knew had to come. According to Bobby and Sharla, the remainder of the mayoral debate between Patricia Cotton and Gabriel "Stone" Parsley had been fairly uneventful, veering from the unfortunate inclusion of the news of Bernice Thumper's death in Parsley's opening statement to a rather civil, if not mundane conversation about small-town politics, civic duties and the like.

But the four mammals in Gideon's home knew full well that was not why they were gathered that night, nor were they assembled to discuss the pros and cons of owning a normal-length couch.

"So," Sharla's tone had become grimmer as she turned toward Gideon, sitting down on the other side of the couch once Bobby had sat up to provide her space, "what'd you see?"

Which, of course, was a tough question for Gideon to answer. He had not _seen_ much of anything; from his spot in the bathroom stall, he had heard more than he had seen.

"Well, I come into the restroom, sit down, and a little while later, there's two folks who come in, right?" said the fox, plopping down his body onto his leathery brown armchair next to the couch, where Bobby and Sharla were listening intently. Even Colt had moved in from the kitchen, leaning against the wall by the hallway that led to Gideon's bedroom, taking slow, silent sips of water while his brother spoke.

Bobby nodded. "And they were… rabbits?"

"Looked so. I only got a peek at 'em from under the stall and could only really see their paws, but… yeah, almost definitely bunnies."

"Fur color?" Sharla asked.

Gideon glanced up at the ceiling thoughtfully. "Hm. Uh… both brown, I think. Maybe gray."

"Sure narrows it down," muttered Colt into his glass of water.

"Aw, cut it out," Gideon shot back, rolling his eyes. "Ain't a lot of variety 'round here."

"True," chimed in Bobby. "We had one white rabbit in Bunnyburrow, and he's, uh…" he trailed off, reminded of Silver O'Hare's condition " _well, anyway_ , they said something about a car?"

Thus began Gideon's retelling of his recollection of what the two rabbits had discussed – the car that was out by the river, the mention of O'Hare being hospitalized and "out of our fur," the worry that Constable Danny Brerington might find the car if they didn't move it soon. And then… nothing, because whomever the voices had belonged to had exited the bathroom entirely, their conversation blending into the din of the evening.

Sharla scratched her chin and leaned against the back of the couch, staring up at the ceiling thoughtfully. Bobby, for his part, was situated to the contrary: arched forward, his gaze seemingly studying the hardwood floor.

"I'm guessing you think the car they're talking about is the one that shot O'Hare, right?" asked Sharla after a small pause.

"Seems like that'd make sense," Gideon said with a nod. "And sounds like they were leaving to move it right then and there while ev'ryone was out at the debate to fly under the radar."

Colt cleared his throat. "That's an easy one, then," he said. "Check the cameras."

"I… don't think we got traffic cameras in Bunnyburrow, Colt," said Gideon with a sigh. "Trust me, I thought of that too."

"Ain't talking about traffic cameras."

Gideon cocked his head to the side. "Er… all right, then, what _do_ ya mean?"

The fox's younger brother stepped closer to the other three, setting his glass of water down on the floor and fishing his phone out of his pocket. He waved it at Gideon. "That app I got, right?"

"The police scanner?"

"Yeah. I've heard 'em talk a few times about this surveillance camera at the antique store downtown. Place has one that faces outward by the front door; guess there used to be break-ins way back when."

Bobby crossed his arms. "That'd probably only show the sidewalk, wouldn't it?"

"You'd think, but whatever weird way they installed it, apparently it's got a decent view of both the sidewalk _and_ some of Main Street, including the traffic stop. Every once in a while, the county cops'll stop in when they're looking for footage on something that happened up north or somethin', usually involving a vehicle, to see if what they're looking for passed by."

Sharla turned to Gideon, sitting up in her seat ever so slightly. "O'Hare's place was-"

"West," Gideon finished the sheep's sentence. "And if they had this car parked up north by the river going outta Bunnyburrow…"

"—the camera would catch it," Colt said. "Probably good enough that you could make out a license plate, maybe even zero in on who was inside."

"Then it sounds like we should head there tomorrow," Bobby said. "Or maybe… go to Brerington first to tell him about it? I dunno, what do you think?"

"Someone's sure gotta do _something_ , that's for sure," agreed Sharla. She turned to Gideon again. "OK, but then you said something else, Gid. After they left, something about… a fox?"

Gideon's tale of the red fox that had been concealed in the broom closet of the bathroom was lighter on dialogue, but what it lacked there was made up for by the visual he got: a trenchcoat-laden fox who wore a hat that concealed his face in shadows, someone who had almost certainly been eavesdropping on the conversation just as Gideon had and was, like Gideon, in pursuit.

And then came their unfortunate crossing of paths, which ended with both of them dazed on the floor of the bathroom while the two rabbits got away.

"Whoever that fox was," said Gideon, "they were trackin' those rabbits, too."

"Well, it ain't me, I'll tell ya that," Colt piped up, returning from the bathroom.

"Yeah, you were wrasslin' back yer megaphone 'round that time."

Colt nodded, patting the megaphone that sat on the floor next to him as he slid to the ground against the wall, propping his elbows on his knees. "I wasn't leavin' 'til I got it back."

"There aren't that many foxes in Bunnyburrow, though, are there?" Sharla said quizzically, glancing at Gideon and then at Colt. "You two were some of the only foxes in school; most went to Foxgrove." She paused. "I guess there was Mike Robins…"

Shaking his head, Gideon barked out a laugh. "Think he's still on house arrest back where his mom lives now, two counties away. Think he and Travis are s'posed to be gettin' out soon, but even if he had, ain't no reason to show back up here."

"You said the fox was covered up, though," Bobby pointed out. "You couldn't see their face. Which is probably what Mike would want."

"Y'got a point, I guess," trailed off Gideon, though he still was not so sure. Then again, the pieces sort of lined up when he thought about them. Mike Robins, who had been convicted for his role in attacking the Bunnyburrow Fall Harvest Festival a few months prior, could have had it out for someone in town – perhaps the town itself. And Gideon could still recall quite plainly their scuffle before the other fox was eventually subdued by Belle Thumper, the words he spat about prey animals and the mixing of prey and predator at the festival. Chances were he would not take too kindly to rabbits even if somewhat reformed, especially if said rabbits had anything to do with the Thumper clan that had helped put him away to begin with.

Gideon paused, looking thoughtfully into the distance, visions of Belle and of O'Hare flooding back into his mind. He realized he had entertained the idea that the mammals who had attacked O'Hare were somehow related to Belle's family, something he had tried to discredit wholesale for the sake of Belle's boisterous denial of the possibility when it was first broached by Brerington. And yet now here he was thinking of it with relative ease.

He shook his head and rubbed his forehead with a paw. This was getting complicated.

"So, if I got this straight," said Bobby, standing from the couch with a pronounced stretch before he began to pace slowly in front of Gideon's turned-off television set, "we've got a dead Thumper, a rabbit who was shot by _someone_ –"

"And not just any rabbit, but Mayor Cotton's deputy campaign manager," interrupted Sharla. "Important to note."

"— _and_ he might have somethin' to do with Bernice," Gideon added. "But we don't know what."

Bobby clutched his head. "Oh, gods, can you please let me finish? This is screwin' me up even more."

When no one spoke another word, he continued pacing.

"So, with all that in mind, we've got two rabbits who might've shot O'Hare, and they were definitely _involved_ in some way. Then, to boot, there's this shady fox running around town trying not to be seen, 'cept Gideon saw him, or her, or whoever it is."

"Don't forget the election," Colt said matter-of-factly while thumbing through something on his phone.

Bobby simply stood there for a few moments, his movement curtailed except for the slight swaying of his tail. His head was down and his arms crossed, left over right.

At last, he looked up at Gideon.

"You're… sure Judy can't come down and help?" he asked, adding a meek, apologetic grin.

Groaning, Gideon reached for his phone, which sat on the side table in between his armchair and the couch. "I told y'all, she's busy," the fox grumbled, picking up his phone and typing in its access code. "And she said I could text her in case we needed advice, but she seemed sorta frazzled, I dunno if—"

Except there, waiting for Gideon when he unlocked his phone, was a text from none other than Judy Hopps.

xXxXxXx

Gideon was nervous.

Well, perhaps a little more nervous than usual, especially when traveling down that particular stretch of Whitehare Lane. His anxiety had passed in recent months with the thawing of his relationship with the Thumpers, or at least Belle specifically, but after his most recent visit to 133 Whitehare Lane, which had ended in a particularly strange conversation with Benny Thumper, his mind had decided that the Thumper household was undesirable yet again.

Of course, it did not help that he had decided to time his passing-by of the house in such a way.

The place had appeared on the horizon, and Gideon's paws were drumming briskly on the steering wheel of his van before he had even noticed what he was doing. He squinted through the windshield, hoping for a glimpse of his target – and, not seeing her, he sighed deeply and thought to perhaps stop, grab his phone from the passenger seat and shoot her another text.

But as he was considering doing so, he spotted a rabbit exiting the front porch of the house and darting toward the side of the road. Gideon heaved a sigh of relief as he noticed the familiar violet-checkered plaid shirt of the bunny, one she had worn once or twice to their meetings at the Icy Koala.

Belle seemed slightly perturbed at needing to be picked up this way, however, evidenced by the slight glare she shot Gideon as he pulled his truck to a halt. She bounded across the road after watching both ways, and when she opened the passenger-side door, she greeted him with a scowl.

"My folks can still see ya if they're lookin'," she grunted, slamming the door and tossing Gideon's phone into the cup holder between them.

"I know," Gideon admitted. "Just figured this would give yer pa less of a chance to interrogate us."

The rabbit shrugged as she buckled her seatbelt. "He's gonna be mad when he finds out where I've been anyway; what's it matter?"

"Right. Baseball fields, then?"

"Fine with me."

A few minutes later, after a ride of relative silence, Gideon and Belle stepped out of the van at the baseball complex, which that day had a little league team, Tri-Burrows Hardscrabble, practicing at one of its diamonds – but otherwise, the place was fairly empty and quiet.

The fox and rabbit took a seat at the bench where they had met just a day earlier under admittedly heavier circumstances. Not that much had changed in the 24 hours since, but where a path of action was muddier then, things were at least coming into focus now – even if Gideon still felt no closer to locating Bernice Thumper's killer than before.

"So, you found her number?" asked Gideon, glancing at Belle's phone, which she had taken out and put down between them.

Belle nodded. "Took some diggin', but Ma and Pa had it written down in some pamphlet from when Bernice moved in to her new apartment there." She paused, taking a small strip of paper with a telephone number scrawled onto it. "Now we just gotta hope she isn't in class or somethin'."

The phone number had been Judy's idea. Gideon was not sure what the rabbit had heard about the Thumper case since their brief call (he had told Bobby and Sharla he would not be surprised if she was monitoring the situation as best as she could from Zootopia), but whatever her involvement, her unsolicited text to Gideon the previous night had been just the step on the right track they had needed to get the ball rolling that morning before an eventual (he hoped) check of the antique store's camera to try to catch a glimpse of the car whose occupants had shot Silver O'Hare.

" _Did Bernice live alone at school?"_ her text had read. _"If not, maybe Belle has her roommate's number. If it were me, I'd see if you can meet up with them."_

Of course, driving all the way to East Meadow was not in the cards that day; perhaps Belle could and would, but Gideon had a few deliveries to make in the afternoon alongside his planned meeting with Bobby and Sharla to figure out the surveillance camera situation. A phone call, however, was another story.

He heard Belle swallow as she typed the number into her phone.

"Y'met 'em?" he asked quietly. "The roommate. Whoever they are."

Belle shook her head. "I didn't move Bernice in this year," she said. "Ma and Pa did, them and I think maybe Billy or Blake. I know her name's Cynthia, though. Another rabbit."

She pushed the call button and switched the function to speaker, allowing both the fox and the rabbit to listen as she laid the phone back down delicately onto the bench.

The phone rang three times without an answer, and Gideon was about to sigh, frustrated, when the fourth ring ended abruptly."

"…hello?" a higher-pitched female voice on the other end of the call asked. The voice certainly seemed flummoxed by the call, a little hesitant. The sound of what appeared to be passing cars could be heard in the background.

"Er… hi. Is this… is this Cynthia?" asked Belle after brief hesitation.

"Yeah, this is Cynthia. This is probably someone from Bernice's family, right?"

"How'd you – I mean, yes, yeah, it is."

"Recognized the area code," Cynthia confirmed quickly. "I, uh… guess I figured someone might… hold on, let me sit down."

Belle bent down closer to the phone while Gideon looked on. "We aren't bothering ya, are we? Sorry, I—"

"There's more than one of you?"

"Oh! Just two of us. I'm Belle, Bernice's sister. And my friend Gideon's listening, too."

Gideon would have allowed his mind to process the fact that Belle had called him a friend for the first time had the situation not been so tense.

"Ah, OK. Right." There was the sound of some sort of movement on the other line, possibly Cynthia sitting down somewhere. The sound of traffic continued like crackling static behind her voice. "She'd mentioned you before, Belle. I'm really sorry to hear about everything."

"No, no, don't you worry," said Belle. "I know it's almost finals week there, so I don't want to burden you with anything else. I just… we wanted to ask you something really quick, Cynthia. Is that OK?"

After a pause, Cynthia said, simply, "Yeah."

"So two nights ago, when Bernice left—"

"That is when you last saw her, right?" interjected Gideon. "Two days ago?"

"Uh huh," Cynthia confirmed. "Late afternoon. I guess they found her that night?"

"Right, OK, that helps," Gideon said.

Nodding, Belle continued: "Did she say where she was going? Or… did you know where she was going? We're trying to figure out what she was doing back home."

"I do, actually. Or… I think so. She was going to see her boyfriend."

Gideon mouthed the final word back to Belle, their eyes meeting. Belle shook her head and shrugged, her face scrunching up in an expression of confusion.

After a few beats, Cynthia asked her own question: "I take it you didn't know she was dating someone."

"She, uh… she never mentioned it," Belle answered, and Gideon could see the wheels turning inside her head – and admittedly, the same was happening to him. If Bernice had a boyfriend her family knew nothing about, and she had turned up dead after going to see him… could he, whoever he was, be their missing link?

"That's weird, because he lived somewhere more near Bunnyburrow, I think," said Cynthia. "Definitely nowhere around here. Wasn't a student, either. He'd come visit sometimes, though, even stayed the night a few times. Mostly he came and picked her up. Except… I think she said was heading toward the bus stop this time, so she was definitely going to see _him_."

Before Gideon or Belle could get in another line of questioning, Cynthia spoke again. "She seemed flustered, though. Said she had to tell him something. It was sudden, but you know Bernice – she got her mind stuck on something, she wasn't gonna back down from it 'til she figured things out. That's the gist I got, anyway. If I didn't know any better, they were gonna break up or something."

"And you just didn't think to tell anyone about that?" demanded Belle, her voice rising in intensity. "Like after you found out she was dead?"

"Oh, I was gonna, but… well, my cousin, she's been over here a few times, so she knows a lot of folks, and she's doin' a residency at General. Anyway, she said he came in last night, had been attacked. I assumed that was the end of it."

"…he'd been attacked?" repeated Belle, perplexed.

"Er… Cynthia," Gideon asked, bending low to the phone. "Who exactly was her boyfriend? D'you know?"

"Yeah. Name's Silver. Silver O'Hare."

 **END**

 ***exaggerated hand motion***

 **Ehhhhhh?**

 **Most of y'all probably already knew, so that ain't much of a bombshell, but BOY OH BOY, it's time to get to the bottom of things.**

 **Thanks so much for reading! See y'all way sooner than this last time. Might even toss up a one-shot for good measure because I can't just focus on one thing lmaooo**


	8. Wait By the River

**SIX DARN MONTHS.**

 **I realize that by neglecting this story for as long as I did, I probably lost the few people who were still tuning in, OOPS.**

 **But oh well! I'm back and ready to give this thing a proper finish. Everything's mapped out, I know where it's going – have known for a bit. But my brain did its usual fall/winter thing where it gets hella writer's block for multi-chapter things, which brings me to write these sporadic one-shots to try to get back in gear, only to, uh, fail miserably.**

 **If anyone out there will have me, though, I'm ready to figure this all out. Don't expect weekly updates or anything necessarily, but I'm halfway confident I can manage one every two weeks.**

 **ANYWAY, HERE LOL**

 **The Dead Waltz**

 **Ch. 8: Wait By the River**

Gideon Grey was sure he had misheard. Maybe it was the dull rumble of his van, or perhaps his mind had simply lost focus when he briefly looked to his right to see Belle Thumper edging her way over the middle of the front seat against the strain of her seatbelt, trying to listen in on his phone call.

"Could ya say that again? Sorry." His voice quavered a bit. "Didn't quite catch –"

"I said I could make it out tomorrow," came Judy Hopps' response on the other end of the phone conversation. "Like, back home. To Bunnyburrow."

"Wow! I, uh…"

"Biker."

"Huh?"

"Biker up head yer about to hit," said Belle calmly. "Unless y'want them to end up like that fox cop fella that got hit a while back."

Gideon grimaced, gingerly steering his van around the biking rabbit who was in the right lane of the two-lane road on which he presently drove. "Thank ya, mind's a little – no, no, sorry, Judy, talkin' to Belle. Yeah, yep, she's here, too, helped me make the call to her sister's roommate. I'm, uh… wait, one sec."

They had made it back into downtown Bunnyburrow, Gideon finding a spot to park his truck just before the focal point of Main Street, where the mammals who enforced parking regulations – if there were even any out that day; the town's reliance on them was a bit of a crapshoot – would probably not bother him despite the length of his vehicle sticking ever so slightly over the white line. He was not in anyone's way, anyway. Someone could pull into the driveway he was partially blocking just fine. He hoped.

Belle seemed to be aware of their parking situation, but she suppressed a warning once Gideon started speaking again.

"OK, I parked, was gettin' distracted talkin' on the phone – yeah, yeah, Judy, I know y'don't like when folks talk on the phone while drivin'." He rolled his eyes and glanced over at Belle, shaking his head. "Uh huh, I'm sure someone got into an accident the other day over on Crevasse Street because they were on their phone. Yep, sounds like a real fender bender." The fox winced. "OK, too much detail now, I don't need to know th—goodness, you almost sound _excited_ to explain this—"

Before he knew what was happening, his phone was ripped from his paw and placed by Belle on the cushion between them, the rabbit switching the phone onto speaker mode.

"Judy!" Belle shouted, probably a little too loudly given the echo of Gideon's van's interior, but the job was done, as the bunny on the other line stopped lecturing the fox on safe driving protocol. "Could ya get on with it maybe, hon?"

Both of them could hear Judy's audible sigh through the speaker. "Right, sorry. I was just telling Gideon that I could come in for maybe a day or so."

"That's what I thought ya said," responded the fox, folding his arms across his chest. "But, uh, I thought there was all these festivals all weekend in Zootopia. Ain't that what yer reasonin' was yesterday?"

"Let me guess," said Judy, "you're not getting the torrential downpour we've got right now."

"Er…" Gideon looked out the window to find just a few clouds in an otherwise spotless afternoon sky, "not especially, no."

"Consider yourselves lucky. It's practically a monsoon here, and someone didn't file the proper permit applications for an indoor show, so those festivals this weekend are mostly canceled and pushed to next week, 'cept for the mammals who couldn't change dates and can't get their deposits back. So, uh," she paused, "my week just sort of freed up. Had some spare PTO, and things have been a little easygoing around the precinct lately. Could use a chance to get the wheels turning."

Gideon shot a look at Belle, who returned it with a small jolt of excitement within her green eyes. He could not deny he shared the sentiment.

"What about Nick?" he asked, gaze returning to the phone receiver.

"Nick… wasn't so lucky. I think."

"Y'… think?" Gideon repeated. 

"I dunno. Honestly, we haven't talked much lately. Something's on his mind, I think. But you know Nick. Not exactly a sharer."

"Sure."

"We'll talk more about it when I get there. In the meantime – what's up today? I saw your text last night about O'Hare and Bernice. So they were…"

"Dating," Belle finished Judy's sentence. "Apparently."

"From the sound of your voice, I'd say that came as a bit of a surprise to you, huh?"

Belle rolled her eyes. "Gee, what tipped ya off?"

"So," Gideon interjected, sending Belle a stern look, "we wanna talk to him more, but I guess he ain't awake yet from the whole, uh, tranq thing."

They heard Judy exhale deeply on the other line. "Cheese and crackers," she said. "That's some heavy duty stuff, then. Even ours usually wears off after a couple hours."

"Right. Almost like whoever darted him wasn't exactly interested in him wakin' back up."

"And… did he have family?"

"Naw, not 'round here. Least that's what Sharla said."

Belle nodded. "I reckon I remember seein' him around town during the holidays, so if he's got family somewhere, he ain't interested in traveling to see 'em."

"Shame," said Judy. "So not much to go on 'til he wakes up."

" _If_ he wakes up," Belle added grimly.

"And when he does…" Gideon started, pausing thoughtfully before continuing, "Judy, what do ya think of him as a suspect? Given, y'know, what I told ya."

There were a few seconds of silence on the other line before Judy spoke. "It's… definitely a theory. Since you said Bernice's roommate thought she might be going to break up with him."

"Yes, yeah, that's right."

"Which would lend credence to the idea that someone from the Thumpers – or at least someone they hired – did this to O'Hare."

Belle said nothing, but Gideon could practically see her fur bristling from where he sat.

"Er, uh, maybe. But prob'ly not."

"I don't quite buy that whole theory anyway," Judy said, leading Belle's muscles to slacken a bit. "Because Bernice doing that in the middle of the night on public transport, and then having to rely on it all the way back to East Meadow probably that same night, would be strange. If Nick came out to break up with me, I'm not driving him back home after he does it."

"Y'don't have a car, Judy."

"…Gideon, you're missing the point."

"Sorry. Yer right." He swallowed. "So, er, anyway, we're fixin' to head up to town in a bit. Wanna talk to Brerington about maybe gettin' a look at the surveillance cameras above the antique store so we can see if we can find out who might've been in the car that shot at O'Hare. Meeting Sharla and Bobby up there, too."

"Oh, good. Shoot me a text when you're outta there. He'll be a big help, I bet."

xXxXxXx

"Nope. No can do."

Gideon blinked. "I, um, I… huh?"

Constable Danny Brerington peered at Gideon, and then at the other mammals who sat astride him, through the wisps of smoke that rose from the simmering cigarette in the ashtray on his desk. It was a wonder, Gideon briefly found himself thinking, that Bobby had not erupted in a fit of coughs, considering what had happened at the Icy Koala just days before.

"Said I can't do it, Mr. Grey," Brerington repeated, plucking the cigarette from the ashtray and taking another quick hit. "Not right now."

"And why not?" Belle demanded, sitting up in her chair that faced the constable's desk, leaning forward and staring daggers through the smoke.

"We're not necessarily asking about doing it ourselves," chimed in Sharla, leaning into the offer as though it was some act of great compromise. "We're… we're tipping you off, you know?"

Nodding, the rabbit that sat in front of him reclined in his cushioned black chair. "And I appreciate that," he said. "Really, I do. It's just that… look, I don't think I got the time right this second to march on over demandin' the tapes from Mr. and Mrs. Longfellow. Not right now."

After a pause, Gideon shook his head, "I'm sorry, Constable, but ain't that… sorta important, findin' out who darted Silver O'Hare?"

"Sure, but why not ask him myself instead?"

"W-what do you mean…?" started Belle.

"Got the call a few minutes before y'all came in." The rabbit pointed at his desk phone, still somehow a rotary after all this time. "Our boy's awake."

"O'Hare's come to?" Sharla asked.

"Mhm. And yours truly's got the first interview." He paused. "And, uh, a friend from the county's who's giving me a second opinion."

The ears of the four seated mammals whipped around as the fifth, Bobby, shifted against the back wall, nearly knocking over a hanged photo of a certificate of some sort. "Sorry, sorry," the cougar apologized, righting the photo against the wooden wall, "little cramped in here, couldn't quite sit." He looked down dolefully at the tiny chairs that even Gideon had the slightest of issues fitting into. "I was, uh, gonna say – Constable, if it pleases the court –"

"I ain't a judge, Bobby."

"—wouldn't it make more sense to catch the guys who shot O'Hare first, if we have a lead? Since they're still out there and all."

To his credit, Brerington seemed to consider the argument, if only because he seemed a bit timid in front of the towering cougar in front of him, perhaps; Gideon could not tell if that was the reason the constable's nose twitched ever so slightly.

"A fair point, Bobby, but I've actually got someone from the surrounding counties on that. Whether they turned onto County Line Road or stayed the course, eventually they gotta hit some other cameras, so some of my friends at the county and over in Podunk are lookin' into what they can see based on Gideon and Belle's description of the car." He grinned. "That's what we call multitaskin' in these parts."

Bobby softened a bit against the back wall, folding his arms across his chest and taking care to not brush up against anything else hanging there. "Ah. Well, that's… good."

Gideon glanced at Belle to his left; she seemed somewhat pacified with the explanation as well.

"Besides," continued Brerington, setting down his cigarette again, though his face still remained somewhat concealed by the smoke it emitted, "store's closed today. Always is. And the owners go a little off the grid on their off-day, as you can probably imagine. Gave 'em a call this mornin', no reply."

"Can we at least come with you, then?" Belle asked, leaning forward so far she was practically about to begin standing instead. "To General?"

"To see O'Hare? Nah, sorry, sweetheart, don't think that's gonna be possible." He sniffed once. "For all we know, we're still treating O'Hare as a suspect in Bernice's death right now, and it won't be a good look for me to bring in a few, well, non-law enforcement types in with me. Doubt the hospital'd even let ya through unless ya happened to be on his guestlist somehow."

He stood, brushing off what appeared to be a few errant crumbs on his blue checkered flannel. "And with that in mind, I'd better get goin'. General isn't a long drive, but I don't wanna leave the town for too long. Parsley fundraiser tonight, y'know." He frowned a bit. "They requested some police presence, given the… well, you're aware."

After a beat, Gideon stood to meet Brerington, and Sharla followed suit shortly after. Belle was the slowest to rise, as well as the last to offer her paw to shake the constable's.

"We do appreciate the time, though," the fox offered, adding a meek smile for good measure. "Hope it helped."

Brerington nodded, grabbing Gideon's paw again. "Anything does, especially with the size of the outfit we're running around here."

"I hear that. Hey," Gideon's eyes lit up suddenly, remembering one final thing he had meant to ask, "one more thing. Y'… I mean, uh, have y'happened to hear of anyone slinkin' around in a tan trenchcoat in town? Maybe last night, 'bout, shoot, during the debate or somethin'?"

Pausing at the door, Brerington looked at the ground momentarily and then shook his head, his eyes meeting Gideon's. "Nah," he said. "Didn't see anything on my end, and you're the first to mention it. Any other features you can remember?"

"Uh… taller than you 'n' I, but not much taller than me. Didn't get a great look, but I think I saw a red fox's tail under the coat."

"And this character was acting shady?"

"If you call hangin' out in the broom closet of a public bathroom shady."

"Reckon so." With a turn of the doorknob and a slight push of his right paw, the door opened onto Main Street, the day's waning sunlight flooding the room. "Take care, now."

Before he had barely been able to register what had happened, Gideon was out the door, along with his friends, the door shut in their face.

xXxXxXx

"Can one, just one of the oafs who takes over our police department here actually be good at their job for once?" Belle huffed.

Gideon cocked an eye as he glanced at the rabbit, who reclined in the grass next to him. Belle's statement came after a few minutes of silence from the bunny, who had remained mute throughout the entirety of their group's brief walk across Main Street to Riverside Park, save for her quick nod of affirmation when Gideon asked if she wanted to join them in the park.

"Didn't you, uh, supp—"

"I swear to the gods, Gideon, if you mention one more time my family's support of Skip Clover, I'm gonna sock ya."

"R-right, my bad," the fox offered meekly.

"I get what you're saying, Belle," Sharla said. She was the only one of the four mammals not lying in the grass, instead sitting with her legs pulled up close to her body, elbows resting upon them. "I get Brerington asking for help from the surrounding areas' departments – he's pretty much all we've got here in town, since his other volunteers pretty much work during the day. But I don't know if I'd've gone about it in the same way."

Belle offered a thumbs up to the sheep, though her eyes remained trained on the sky. "Appreciate the vote of confidence."

"I don't condone punching Gid in the face, though."

"You're no fun."

"At the risk of undergoing bodily harm," said Bobby, a little louder than the others as he tried to project his voice over the sound of the rushing river to which he was closest, "isn't he just doing the best he can do? Especially since it looks like O'Hare might've had _something_ to do with all this."

Gideon shook his head. "I dunno, Bobby. The way those rabbits were talkin' in the bathroom last night, from what I could hear, they were tryin' to get O'Hare outta the picture. That don't sound like he's a culprit to me. Especially since they were dating. Which, shoot, forgot to tell Brerington." The fox cursed his oversight there internally, though he balanced his mind with the realization that O'Hare would likely tell Brerington about their relationship anyway.

"Yeah, unless it was revenge. Er –" the cougar added when he received an icy stare from Belle, "maybe. I'm not sayin' that was what happened, just – gods, Belle, can you stop with the evil eye?! I didn't mean it."

Bobby's gaze then shifted to Gideon, who had sat up and was looking past him toward the road. "Hey, uh, Gid? Appreciate you blocking Belle from view, but… what's up?"

"Shh," the fox raised a paw to his mouth. "One second. Don't turn around, either, none'ya."

While the other mammals kept their heads down, Bobby returning his line of sight to the magnolia tree above them and Sharla to the floor (Gideon could not be sure if Belle had listened, but he certainly hoped so), Gideon trained his eyes on Danny Brerington, who after letting them out of his office and running back inside to retrieve something he had forgotten, was climbing into his car.

He watched as the rabbit drove away a few moments later, the car rolling through the T-shaped intersection and off toward the hospital.

"OK, yer good."

"The heck was that about?" Bobby asked, whipping his head around and sitting up as though it had taken him a great deal of patience to not follow Gideon's gaze.

"Brerington's gone."

"Yeah, and…?"

"We're not waitin' for him to get inside the antique store. We're doin' it ourselves."

In an instant, the other three mammals stood around him, and suddenly there were multiple voices being thrown at him from every direction – some admonishing, others not so much.

"Didn't you hear—"

"C'mon, don't get reckless."

"I knew not all foxes were bad."

He heard Belle last, and he turned to her, dusting grass off his back as he hoisted himself off the ground.

"I knew the second he said somethin' about the owners. Dunno if y'all caught their name."

Sharla scratched at her chin. "No. To be honest, I've never known who owned that place."

"Longfellows. Ring a bell?"

Belle's eyes lit up. "Oh, like Aaron Longfellow? Judy's old flame?"

"And my business partner right now, but sure, that too."

Not that he saw Aaron too much in recent weeks; the rabbit was mostly a partner of Gideon's baking shop in a financial sense, ever since the events of the previous year's Fall Harvest Festival when he practically demanded to let Gideon throw money at him. Most of his exploits remained focused on a farm his parents owned, but the rabbit still popped in from time to time, and they certainly held a running text chain, one Gideon had used just minutes before.

"I figured that name ain't too common 'round here, so chances were Aaron was related to 'em somehow," continued Gideon, stepping forward and turning around so he was facing the other three mammals rather than just Belle. "They're his great aunt and uncle, turns out, has a cousin who helps out in the store when they can't lift some of their heavier stuff. Point is, has a key to the place."

"Whoa, thinking on the fly there," Bobby said, a hint of amusement in his voice.

"And Aaron's cousin's just gonna let us into the place?" Sharla's eyes narrowed, clearly unsure about the plan.

Shaking his head, Gideon said, "Nah, Aaron is. He's on his way with the key from his cousin right now. Somethin' 'bout a favor."

"OK, but why's Aaron in on this?"

"Because I told him Judy's coming into town and that it'd help her. Police business and all that."

Belle expelled a bark of laughter, while Sharla frowned even more prominently, crossing her arms and glowering at the fox. "Gid, stop gettin' his hopes up, that was years ago they dated."

"Oh, no, he's doing it as a friend."

"Uh huh. Sure."

"He even know her and Nick are dating?" questioned Bobby thoughtfully.

"For the sake of comedy, I hope not," Belle said with another laugh. "So when's he here?"

Ignoring Sharla's continued protests, Gideon glanced down at his phone to check the time. But the clock of his phone was not the first thing that caught his eye.

"Uh… Gideon?" asked the rabbit, waving her paw in front of his face. "Bunnyburrow to Gideon. You just need to check the time."

"I-I'm sorry, I—"

"What's wrong?" Sharla's features softened finally. "Is everything OK? Is it about O'Hare? Bernice?"

"I, uh… I don't think so."

Bobby threw his paws in the air. "OK, dude, cut the suspense, what's up?!"

Turning his phone over in his paw and gripping it tightly, Gideon showed his phone screen to the three mammals. A single missed call, one that had somehow come in undetected, probably while they had been discussing their plan at the antique shop, had popped up on the screen. "I didn't have it in my phone 'cause I never thought I'd need it again, but I know this number…" Gideon trailed off.

"Whose is it?"

"Travis."

 **END**

 **Ugh, I feel like that wasn't as action packed as I had originally wanted it to be, but I thought it was important to get some of these interactions out there. It sets up what I'm hoping is gonna be a super revelatory chapter nine.**

 **Because Travis is back lmaoooo here we go**

 **I appreciate you taking the time to read! Seriously. Any hit I get, I'm just like, oh god, me, lil ol me? So, like, really. Thanks for taking some time out of your day to check out this story.**


	9. Sea Change

**I think the one-year anniversary of this story's coming up in a few days. Figures; I got the 16-chapter prequel to this done in about seven months, but it's taken me a year to write nine of this, most of which have been shorter chapters than what was in** _ **The Redemption of Gideon Grey**_ **.**

 **Oh, well – here's an update!**

 **The Dead Waltz**

 **Ch. 9: Sea Change**

The sunset always looked different on that side of town. No one had concocted a definitive reason as to why, but it was widely agreed upon that that was the case. Perhaps it was the tree line that separated the Goatsby property from the Oswalds', a towering line of firs that blocked downtown Bunnyburrow from view, even though the tallest part of the area, a church steeple, could be seen for miles in other directions due to the flat farmland. What was normally a sunset that ended when the sun disappeared over bushels of hay and stalks of corn instead vanished much earlier, save for the few gasping rays flitting through breaks in tree branches.

At any rate, it got darker earlier there, and Gideon Grey was not quite sure how he felt about that in that moment, clinging desperately to an additional few minutes of sunshine before his truck passed the tree line. He drove in the dark all the time, so he did not mind it on principle; rather, it was the specific circumstance that troubled him.

Even if he had put himself into that circumstance. No one said, after all, he had to drop by, and maybe he did not even need to. A week before, he certainly would have avoided an invitation, regardless of the invite's contents – or, at least, he would have suggested a raincheck, clearing his head a bit before diving into what could be a precarious situation indeed.

But he had some errands to run, anyway. Despite all the trouble in town with Bernice Thumper's death and the ragtag bunch of amateur detectives he had unintentionally convened in light of her killing that had taken up much of his free time, Gideon still had a business to run. And given that business had very much been booming in recent weeks leading up to a summery season of picnics, family gatherings and other occasions in need of baked goods, he saw no reason to earn some disappointed customers along the way by not fulfilling orders.

That had been his plan, to be fair. Make a few deliveries, some of which were scheduled for that day, two others that could be fulfilled the next morning but would be done then if the recipients were home (they were). Then haul tail back into downtown, where Aaron Longfellow would be waiting with a key to his relatives' antique store that would, in theory, unlock more than a few secrets and certainly answer some questions they had about Bernice, Silver O'Hare, the shady black car and perhaps much more.

Then came Travis.

Gideon sighed as he located the house on the horizon, the one he knew all too well from playdates as a kit. The one-story home made of blackened concrete, a maroon roof the only part of the place that might keep the house from blending into the night if no one was home. It remained a tiny place after all this time, despite the owners' chronic announcements of plans over the years to build an additional wing or two to give their then-pre-teen son and his friend a chance at more privacy rather than playing in the same rooms as his parents or otherwise out and about the property. Which often turned into unplanned, aimless jaunts into downtown, where opportunities for mischief were magnified tenfold.

He had not actually visited in what had probably been a half decade, maybe more. Sometime in high school, certainly, the time when the fox and the ferret began to drift apart, different friend cliques forming and others breaking down. He had driven past it since, and he had definitely seen all of its residents (of whom he was aware, at least) over the past year. Going inside? A different story. Travis and his family were not exactly patrons of Gideon Grey's Real Good Baked Stuff just yet.

As he slowed his delivery van to meet the cobbled-together stone driveway, he realized he could not decide if he was relieved to see a single light on – a window-side lamp – and the dim commotion of illumination from a switched-on television set or if he had hoped the place would be completely dark. On one paw, light – especially that from a TV – meant someone was home.

On the other? Well… again, someone was home.

And that someone was Travis; Gideon noticed his face in the window immediately, sitting up from a couch or chair that must have been slightly out of view from the driveway. The fox noticed him squinting through what must have been somewhat-blinding headlights, and, once he appeared to recognize the van (not that it was tough to make out), the ferret nodded and motioned once toward the front door. Which was a shame, really. Gideon had hoped to keep their discussion somewhere outside, preferably within earshot of a witness.

 _OK, OK_ , the fox thought, the rational part of his brain attempting to one-up the voice in his head that expected the worst. _Cool it. It's gonna be fine_.

Because it was going to be fine, right? Gideon was not deeply scared of Travis per se; he had always been much bigger than the ferret, and any schoolyard tussles between them had been easily won by the larger mammal. Travis, however, had a bit of a scrappy reputation in high school – mostly due to the crowd with which he ran – and while they had not crossed physically each other in a while, Gideon did not expect him to emerge from a fight with nothing but minor scrapes and bruises.

 _Oh, shush_ , he attempted to silence the voice in his head again. _He called you here, remember? There's evidence. He ain't that stupid_.

 _Yeah_ , the other voice reasoned back. _He ain't. But he also just got outta jail_.

He pulled his truck to a halt, shut off the engine and grunted as he dropped its keys into his pocket. The lights of his van extinguished as soon as the keys left the ignition, and the fox found himself in an ephemeral, almost ominous twilight, with near-silence all around save for the dull, muddled noise of Travis' TV set inside.

 _He ain't that stupid_ , Gideon's mind repeated as he opened his driver's side door and stepped outside into the cool spring evening.

Travis was already waiting for him at the front door of the house, though the door remained closed; Gideon could barely see him through a small window on the door that sat in line with the ferret's eyes.

Swallowing once to steel himself, Gideon trudged through the grass of the front yard, wet thanks to a quick afternoon shower earlier in the day, not noticing until it was too late that he had completely missed a path through the grass marked by a half dozen rounded stones.

"Coulda used the path," Travis offered bluntly, having noticed Gideon's unorthodox jaunt to the house, as the fox tentatively opened the front door. A screen door just inside kept a barrier between them.

"It's dark," responded Gideon, rolling his eyes. "Don't y'all have lights?"

"They're busted. Pa's been meanin' to fix 'em, so's I hear."

Gideon folded his arms across his chest and shifted his weight to his right leg as he stood, simultaneously waiting to be invited in and also kind of fine with the present arrangement. "Or it gives you a project now that you've got some spare time."

"Nah, not anytime soon." The ferret shook his head.

"Why not?"

Travis pushed open the screen door and pointed to his leg, where a gray house arrest blanket was fastened around his right ankle.

"Ah," Gideon said shortly. "Guess you won't be joinin' me outside on this lovely evenin' then, huh?"

"'Fraid not."

He propped the screen door open with his elbow, moving to the side of the entryway.

"C'mon in, Gid, I'm not gonna do anything to ya," he continued as though he had sensed the fox's hesitancy. "Y'want a beer? Soda? Water?"

"Uh… a water's fine," Gideon said, stepping inside.

Nodding, Travis disappeared into the kitchen, which was directly beside the front living room into which the front door opened. "Take a seat on Pa's easy chair, if you want," announced the ferret from the other room, where Gideon could see him retrieving a clear glass from a cupboard. "He ain't home. Just me."

"Y'sure this ain't… some sorta violation?" Gideon eyed the nearby navy blue chair, apparently a favorite of Travis' father, and slowly sank into its pillowy cushion.

"Havin' visitors is fine, Gid, I ain't quarantined. Unless you were Mike Robins, but it'd be a little weird seein' him turn up here."

"I take it he's not out yet."

"Not for a little while, so I hear. Vehicular manslaughter'll do that to a guy." He poked his head around the corner of the entryway into the kitchen, shooting Gideon an impish grin. "That tussle I heard y'all got into probably didn't help, either."

Gideon could not help but grin a little at that. "Nah, I reckon not."

Travis reappeared a short time later with a glass of water and a can of beer for himself. The ferret flopped down onto the nearby couch after cracking open and taking a swig of his drink, lying on his back so that his hind paws were closest to the chair in which Gideon sat. Gideon's gaze could not help but be drawn once more to the ankle bracelet.

"So," Travis said after a few beats of silence. "How're things?"

"Ya called me here, Travis, could we cut the peasantries?"

"It's pleasantries."

"Huh?"v

"You said peasantries. It's pleasantries."

Gideon rolled his eyes and sighed. "Is that necessary?"

"Nah," said the ferret, grinning. "But it does make it feel a little more like old times."

"Y'mean before y'all tried to attack all the prey animals out at the Fall Harvest Festival and got yerself thrown in jail for a few months?"

Travis frowned, sitting up a little. "Please note that _I_ was the one who tripped up Clover so Hopps could nail him."

"I do remember that. It's prob'ly why yer sittin' here now."

"Darn right. But I had a lot of time to think about it—"

"Oh, _here_ we go."

"—and, look, I dunno, Clover could be persuasive!" He threw his paws into the air as he sat up completely on the couch, his growing frustration visibly teeming beneath his fur. "He promised a lot of stuff for my family. I'm sure you remember that."

"And I also remember you goin' to city council meetings and harassin' folks about the festival long before Clover came into the picture."

Travis opened his mouth to speak but seemed to think better of it and closed it, lying back down on the couch. "Yeah, I mean… you, uh… I dunno, Gid, I just got caught up in some stuff." He cocked his head and directed his gaze back to Gideon. "Same stuff you'd probably've gotten into if you hadn't gotten out when ya could."

"So is that why I'm here? Ya wanna 'pologize? Because yer text suggested otherwise."

His old friend was standing a moment later, waving his paws in front of his face. "No! I mean, uh, yes. I mean… look, I'll get to that other stuff, cross my heart." For dramatic effect, he slid a claw downward against his chest. "But I did wanna say sorry for how things ended up. I had some time to think, and I realized I was takin' some anger out on you for movin' on from us in high school.

"But that's… that's what friends do sometimes, don't they? Grow apart. My Ma says she ain't got the same friends now she did in middle school except for, I dunno, one or two mammals? And the whole prey thing, well… look, when I was in the clink, there were a lot of other mammals, rabbits, goats, whatever. And I had to spend a whole lot of time with 'em, and they're good mammals, I dunno. Well, maybe _they_ aren't, 'cause they obviously messed up enough to end up in the same place as me, but – _ugh,_ d'you get what I mean?" 

Gideon did understand; it was a realization he himself had come to many years before, when as a teenaged kit he began to deeply consider the anger he felt in his heart toward many mammals, prey or predator, and set himself on a path of healing – or, at least, containment of the rage that had long stewed within him. It could be a heady thing, that comprehension, and he did not fault Travis for being a bit all over the place while explaining matters.

"Well, look, Travis, I… y'remember Belle Thumper, right?"

" _Obviously_." Travis had found himself a seat again.

"Well, she 'n' I, we've been… seein' each other—"

The ferret's eyes widened, and he opened his mouth to speak.

"No, no, no," backtracked Gideon, shaking his head and rubbing his forehead with a paw. "Not like – not like that. Like, hangin' out. As _friends_." He added extra emphasis on the final word.

"Whew." Gideon watched Travis' posture relax. "Thought you were sayin' you were datin'." He paused and averted his eyes to the side. "Not that there's, uh, anything wrong with that."

"What, datin' a bunny or datin' Belle?"

"The first part, mostly," he said with a shrug. "But I guess Belle too. Heck, might get all the stuff you put her through in school to make more sense." Travis flashed a toothy smile, teeth glinting from the light of the muted television set. "Gid had a crush, and that's how he showed it."

"Oh, _stop_ ," the fox growled. "I musta had a lot of crushes, then."

"Yeah, good point. Anyway, so you and Belle are… friends now? I'm guessin' that means she's turned over a bit of a new leaf herself."

Nodding, Gideon said, "Which is what I'm tryin' to say. It was Belle's therapist who said we should start meetin' up, workin' things out. Maybe that'll work fer you 'n' I… I mean, after all this mess in town is over."

"Well, that leads in perfectly to what I wanted to talk to ya about." Travis straightened a little on the couch. "See, when I got out a couple days ago, Ma – you know she likes to gossip – said she'd been seein' y'all around town together. And about how Bernice died and all."

"And… yer text said you might know somethin' about what happened to her?" Gideon asked.

Travis frowned and took another sip of his beer. "Y'know," he stole a glance out of the window, where evening had fully descended on the countryside, and sighed, "I dunno, really. But somethin' about it all seemed a little fishy, and it reminded me a little of somethin' I learned during my, er, extended vacation."

"Anything helps."

"Right. So… gods, I don't even know how to get to this, but… there were some mammals I got along with in jail, yeah, and others who kept to themselves. But I was still able to get a sense of everyone, their alliances, who they had some ties to out in the real world, y'know?"

Gideon smirked. "So you could pick out the gang members."

"No! Well, yes. But it goes beyond that." He paused. "Like… what to y'know about the New Society?"

Despite Travis' pointed question and the seriousness with which he asked it, Gideon could not suppress a laugh.

"Nothin' I don't know from Miss Archer's history class way back when. And all I really remember is them gettin' blacklisted and goin' into hidin' since no one could find work if you had ties to 'em. So no one's heard from 'em in years."

"See, that's what I thought, too. That name's tarnished, it is," the ferret said with a shrug. "I mean, if I didn't know any better, I'd've said that whole protestin' group Belle was runnin' when you and some of the other preds got accepted into the Fall Harvest Festival was somethin' like New Society 2.0. Minus the, y'know, murderin' and all."

"Murderin', blackmailin', cheatin', thievin' – no good, that's fer sure," said Gideon, who suddenly had a potent desire to spit on something just thinking about the anti-predator group that had once possessed a much haughtier standing in the Tri-Burrows and beyond. "So, what, then? Y'find someone in the slammer who started spoutin' off about how not all of 'em were bad or somethin'?"

Travis grimaced, and Gideon knew he was not going to like the answer even before it left the ferret's lips. "Er… define 'were.'"

"I ain't gotta define it for you. It's past t—"

"Cripes, Gid, I didn't mean literally. I mean they didn't really ever go away."

Gideon sat up in his chair, planting his hind paws on the wooden floor beneath them. "This ain't like that other group that was out holdin' rallies in the forest all dressed up 'n' such, ain't it?"

"Naw, different. Think even more secretive. Like, secret society secretive. Stuff even the local governments probably ain't privy to." Another sip of beer. "Basically, I met a guy in there, this rabbit character, or maybe he was a hare, I dunno. He didn't much like conversin' with us preds, though, which I thought mighta been 'cause, y'know, your usual speciesist type. 'Cept _then_ I come to find out through a little surveillance one night… OK, so's this mammal's got the cell catty-corner from me, and his cellmate was a bit of a listener, not much of a talker. So that rabbit would talk to him sometimes late in the evenin', when he thought everyone else was sleepin', and one night when he probably thought I was asleep, I heard him discussin' the New Society.

"And it wasn't just some sympathetic-to-the-cause mumbo jumbo. Naw, he was talkin' 'bout the current leadership, how they never went away but stayed in hidin' for years, tryin' to plot a comeback. And see here, this fella says they figured out how to – what to say, how to say it, y'know? So's slowly but surely they've been takin' over little hamlets here 'n' there, gettin' up in their governments and police departments and what have you. Gettin' elected with these… what'd he call 'em, palatable viewpoints or somethin', while in the background they're lookin' to suppress preds any way they can."

"Y'don't say…." Gideon was near-speechless. His mind had wandered to the figure he had run into in the Riverside Park bathroom, the trenchcoated mammal who was clearly spying and snooping around and who had gasped at the sight of him. But that had been a red fox, right? And the New Society would be… prey.

…right?

"And that's not all." Travis had stood again and was pacing now, usually avoiding eye contact with Gideon as he walked to and fro in front of the TV, paws animatedly emphasizing each of his words. "Apparently they already took over West Meadow. Like, infiltrated the whole darn thing. But he says the townsmammals barely have a clue –think they just voted in your average local politician with a hankerin' to be mayor. Then he was goin' on about some sorta voter fraud for when they aren't gettin' the results they wanted, but _wow_ , you hearin' this?" He paused, stopping right in front of where Gideon sat. "West Meadow, Gid. And they've got designs on more."

Gideon had to admit the story was interesting, if not a bit disconcerting. He only vaguely recalled the elections in West Meadow, but he felt like he remembered its current mayor being an incumbent. Had the rabbit's facts been a little off? Or did this go back further than the last few months or years?

Still, while he appreciated Travis' insight…

"So what's this got to do with Bernice Thumper's death?"

"I _told_ ya, maybe nothin'. But then a couple of days after I get home, I hear about Bernice dyin', and then all that stuff that happened at the debate, accordin' to my parents, some of the stuff Parsley was sayin', and… I dunno." He stared at Gideon, face scrunched up in a bout of frustration. "I just… I really dunno. Since I heard you and Belle were hangin', I thought maybe at least she'd wanna know. Or the rest of her family. Maybe they know somethin' else."

"I doubt that," the fox said, shaking his head. "And Belle's parents are big Parsley supporters, anyway."

"Well, if nothin' else…" Travis sat back down again, this time reclining with his hind paws back up on the couch, "guess I just wanted to tell ya to keep an eye out. 'Cause if what this rabbit was sayin' was true, the New Society bein' back ain't good for you and me. At all."

xXxXxXx

Even though it had been his idea, Gideon still felt a great deal of apprehension entering Main Street's antique store the way he currently was: through the rear door in a back alley off the main drag.

It had been a wonder, he decided, that his delivery van had even fit down the narrow, one-lane, gravel-ridden path that ran astride the many businesses of Bunnyburrow's business district. In fact, with the placement of the dumpster behind the Icy Koala he saw up ahead of him before he parked his truck and shut off its lights, he surmised there was little chance of him being able to get out on the northbound side of the alleyway.

Luckily, that would not be necessary; it would be a quick in-and-out affair, or so he assumed, and then he could throw his truck in reverse and back out the other side of the alley without hitting a single thing. Maybe. The fox was not sure how much he trusted his reverse driving ability at night.

The door to the store was propped open, which made sense; Gideon, wrapping up with Travis at his home, had answered Sharla's text about their meeting at the Longfellows' shop, saying to go on inside and that he would meet them inside after making the trip back into town. No use having everyone wait outside, especially when the assembled group knew exactly what they were after and how to get it.

He followed the light once inside, stepping around a corner where an office and an employees-only bathroom met him. By then he had heard the voices, immediately recognizing Bobby Catmull's hushed vocal and Belle Thumper's persistent, direct voice as she told someone to "speed it up."

Sure enough, there they were – a sheep, two rabbits and a cougar, all hunched – Bobby more so than the others – over a tiny computer screen, its bright blue glow washing over their faces.

Aaron Longfellow was the first to turn around.

"Ah, _there_ 's the mammal of the hour. Thought you might send me on a mission to break in to my own relatives' store without showing your own muzzle," the rabbit chuckled.

"Wouldn't miss it for the world, Aaron. How ya been?" Gideon closed the door behind them and found a spot next to Sharla, who scooted to her right to accommodate the fox.

"Hmph." Aaron turned his head back to the computer screen and its mouse, which he was handling with his right paw. "That's right. Haven't seen my _business partner_ all week. 'Cause he's off, uh, gallivanting around town playing cop – and apparently dragging his friends in, too."

"Sorry, I wouldn't've asked, but—"

Aaron held up his free paw to silence the fox. "It's fine," he reassured him. "It isn't much. Aunt Sally and Uncle Roger won't even know we were in here."

"And it helps Judy," Belle said plainly.

"And it helps J—hey, _no_ , I did not say that. Judy has nothing to do w— _stop giving me that look, Thumper, I swear_."

While the pair of bunnies continued bickering, Sharla tilted her head slightly to the left, speaking softly to Gideon. Bobby turned his head, too, to listen. "What'd Travis want?" she asked.

"It's, uh… it's somethin', all right. I'll tell ya after we get outta here."

"Was it about Bernice?" chimed in Bobby.

"Yes. Well, no. Sorta. Just – what's the deal here? With the tapes?"

"Apparently they've got some really old program to play their surveillance tapes on this computer," Bobby said with a defeated shrug. "We think we're on the right one now, but it's… taking a minute to find what we need."

"I'm almost there," snapped Aaron, before adding: "Er, I think."

"Are you even on the right day?" asked Belle with a pronounced eye roll.

Sharla nodded. "Definitely," she affirmed. "Check out the park; they're setting up for the debate, which was the same day as when O'Hare got shot. Bet I'm in there somewhere."

"Ooh, I'm gonna find ya—"

"Maybe… focus on the task at paw, Bobby?" grunted Gideon.

"Oh. Heh. Sure."

Aaron continued to scroll through the videotape, which, as advertised, had a fairly clear view of the intersection through which the car might have passed.

"So we're looking for a black car? Four doors? The usual?" Aaron asked.

"Yessir. If I'm not mistaken, it'll prob'ly be turnin' onto County Line Road." Gideon pointed at the top of the intersection. "Based on what I heard those mammals in the bathroom sayin' that night, they hid the thing a little ways up that way."

"Is this our guy?"

All five pairs of eyes trained on the screen as Aaron paused the video on a black car that was turning onto County Line Road after going northbound on Main Street, the direction from which the car whose occupants had shot at Silver O'Hare would have been going.

"Zoom in," Gideon directed. Aaron obeyed, clicking and dragging until more details of the vehicle were easy to glean.

Gideon squinted. "I, uh… I think that's it, yeah. Belle, what do you think?" He pointed a claw tip at the hood of the car. "See that?"

Nodding, Belle looked closer at the screen, Aaron leaning back to give her a better vantage point. "The hood ornament, right? Whatever it is."

"Yeah, I can't tell, but I remember seein' somethin' gold flash in the sun at the front of the car before it drove away, and that there's a gold somethin'-or-other on the hood." His eyes darted around the screen. "What's the timestamp?"

"This puts us around…" Aaron clicked the mouse twice, "5 o'clock or so."

"Bingo," Gideon said with a nod. "This is our car."

"I can't see who's in it, though," added Sharla, sighing. "Tinted windows."

"Aaron, can ya push it ahead a few seconds? Hopefully we can see the rear license plate."

A few moments later, there it was. 

"T133729," Bobby recited.

"That there's a Bunnyburrow-issued plate, too," Belle pointed out. "It's hard to tell 'cause it's blurry, but you can see the tree on the left and the carrot on the right. It's some sort of anniversary plate they issued a few years back."

Sharla nodded emphatically. "My parents have one too. I think it was for Carrot Days turning 100."

"Regardless," Aaron announced, pausing the video again and leaning back in the chair in front of the computer, "someone please write down the plate number if you haven't already so we can skedaddle – and out the way you came, if you please. I'll wait for you to head out and then switch back on the back door's camera and then head out myself. I still got a date with a bottle of red wine tonight."

"Of course you're a wine drinker."

"The heck does that mean, Thumper?!"

Gideon straightened to his full height, and Sharla and Bobby followed while Aaron began to close out of the program, all the while fervently discussing the mouthfeel of a particular vintage with Belle, who Gideon knew from experience was ride-or-die for Big Buck Brewing Company.

"Where even is the nearest DMV?" asked Bobby, turning away from the tiff and staring at the ceiling, rubbing his chin thoughtfully.

"I don't know, but we'd need Judy to help us run it, wouldn't we?" Sharla said, crossing her arms. "If… even she's allowed to. Can cops just sorta go around wherever they want for something like this?"

Gideon shook his head. "Dunno. Judy will, though. But it don't matter until she's here, which is fine, because anywhere where we could run one's gonna be closed by now."

"Unless… Judy can do it remotely somehow?"

"…huh. I dunno." The fox grabbed his cellphone from his pocket and switched it on. "Worth a try."

His ears pricked at a noise from outside the door that he could not quite place, but his mind quickly stuffed it down. Probably a car out on Main Street, he reasoned.

Bobby, however, did not seem so sure.

"Uh… Bobby, you all right?" Sharla asked with a dash of concern, her hoof lightly touching the cougar's shirt sleeve while his head whipped around toward the door.

Bobby said nothing, pulling away from Sharla's touch and stepping closer to the door.

"Hey, what's with Whiskers?" Belle asked, pulling her attention away from Aaron.

The cougar held up a paw, a gesture that seemed to be meant to quiet the rabbit. Gideon, who had texted the plate number to Judy, was now focused on the door, too – or more specifically, what was outside it.

There was that sound again. A creak.

Something that was definitely coming from inside the store.

What happened next was a bit of a blur. Gideon watched as Bobby, in a bout of courage he had rarely seen from the big cat, wrenched open the door and dashed outside, looking to his left and then to his right.

His tall, lanky figure was promptly pummeled off balance, tossed like a ragdoll to the left, where the sound of his body impacting with the wall echoing through the shop.

"Bobby!"

Gideon dashed into the hallway outside the office, eyes darting around, his night vision kicking in after the light of the room from which he had stepped. Bobby was crumpled against the side of the wall, one of his legs kicking at his assailant, which the fox recognized as a tall black hare, dressed in an equally dark suit.

"Who in the—" exclaimed Aaron, joining Gideon in the hallway.

The rabbit whirled from Bobby, whose frame was slowly sliding down the wall onto the floor. Gideon would not soon forget the eyes that stared back at him: one emerald green, sky blue the other. The brows above both were downturned in a vicious leer.

"That ain't anyone I know!" Aaron shouted, stepping slightly ahead of Gideon. "Who goes there? And why are you trespassing in my family's store?"

"Close the door behind ya next time," the rabbit spoke with a low, rusty voice, the accent of which seemed to indicate he was from the area. Then, with a whip crack of speed, he darted toward Aaron, leaping into the air, back paws aimed toward his chest.

Aaron caught the rabbit as best as he could, paws closing around the mysterious attackers own airborne paws, but the force of the blow was too much for him to withstand without staggering backward, nearly dripping over an ill-placed bucket. Gideon prayed it was not one of the store's for-sale heirlooms.

"Stay inside, y'all," Gideon barked at Sharla and Belle. "Bobby, I'm comin'."

He had not expected Belle to listen, so he was not shocked when the bunny brushed past him to enter the fray while the fox dashed to the cougar's side.

"You OK, buddy?" Gideon asked, kneeling at his side. 

"Knocked the… wind outta… me," wheezed Bobby. "But… ain't… too hurt, I think." He rubbed his ribs and winced in pain.

Gideon's head whipped around to watch Aaron and now Belle, who were attempting to take the black rabbit two-on-one. Belle had latched onto the rabbit's back and was trying to pull him down with her, her back paws scraping at the floor every so often. Aaron, meanwhile, was cornered himself, backed against what looked like a door into the main store.

"Do _not_ take this fight into the gallery," yelled Aaron. "I mean it! There's stuff in there worth more than whatever whoever's paying you to follow us around, I assure you!"

"I don't want some stupid trinkets," the rabbit growled. In an impressively fluid motion, he tossed Belle off his back and landed an elbow against her face, sending her sprawling, followed by what seemed like a powerful kick against Aaron's body while he tried to wrench himself up on the door handle, knocking him back to the floor. "Your hides'll do, though."

He pulled out what looked like a tranq gun, and Gideon's mind flashed back to where he had seen the weapon before: pointing out of a black car as it first shot Silver O'Hare, and then aimed toward him and Belle…

A sickening crunch reverberated through the hallway before Gideon could even think to move toward the rabbit in Aaron's defense. An oomph escaped the muzzle of their attacker, and he slid to the floor almost instantly, the victim of a stout chop to the back of his neck, one delivered with so much force that Gideon heard the thwack that accompanied it.

His first thought was that Belle was much stronger than he was aware and resolved to get her to show him the move later.

But as he moved toward the now-motionless body of the rabbit who just moments before had been about to send Aaron – and perhaps the rest of them – to a fate similar to that of O'Hare days before, he realized that Belle, rubbing her face from the blow she had received, had turned to face the direction of the doorway.

Gideon dashed around the corner – and there stood the trenchcoat-laden mammal from the night of the debate. Or, at least, someone who looked very much like it against the moonlight that streamed in through the open door.

"You!" exclaimed Gideon, pointing a claw. "I saw you at – I thought you were—"

He heard the figure curse under his breath, followed by a phrase that almost sounded something like "I knew it."

"I thought you might've been one of the – oh, heck, who _are_ you?" He took another step toward the figure.

"This is what I get, I guess," the figure spoke in an all-too-familiar voice. "Could've gone out to East Meadow, or Podunk, Foxgrove, something, but nooooooo, let's make it Bunnyburrow, where you probably know half the town."

"I-is that…" whispered Belle, who stood at Gideon's side.

Nick Wilde took off the wide-brimmed hat that had been meant to conceal his face and sighed. "Well, guess there's no hurt in working together," he said, his eyes assuming that usual half-lidded stare, a meek grin forming across his face. "So, what'd you guys find out?"

 **END**


End file.
